Bound Home
by EndlessBlue
Summary: S3 AU - Guy survives, and he and Djaq try to bury ghosts both old and new. Guy/Djaq. Warning for character death. Major angst, with a happy ending.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: **This was written for the gift exchange ficathon on the RH BBC Yuku boards. It can be found there in its entirety - however, the version posted here will be an edited/revised version, with a slightly different ending and with a bit more meat in the middle. As I am only revising this story and not writing it completely anew, you can expect frequent updates.

Chapters will be short, for the most part, and each one will contain a drabble(ish-type thing) from Guy and Djaq's POV, alternating between the two. Also, since most of the events in this story take place in Acre, Djaq is mostly referred to as 'Saffiya.'

WARNING again for character death, in case you missed it in the summary. Guy loses Marian. Djaq loses Will. The bulk of this story is about the grieving process, though there is an honest-to-goodness happy ending.

Reviews are always welcome and greatly appreciated.

* * *

**Bound Home**

**Chapter One**

_Sad wanderer, once you conquered the South,  
Commanding a hundred thousand men;  
Today, dismissed and dispossessed,  
In your old age you remember glory.  
Once, when you stood, three borders were still;  
Your dagger was the scale of life.  
Now, watching the great rivers, the Jiang and the Han,  
On their ways in the evening, where do you go? _

-Liu Chanqing, A Farewell to Governor Li on His Way Home to Hanyang

* * *

The dream is long and frightening, but as he climbs the steps to his waking, he fears that the terrors of the dream will somehow be less than the terrors of reality, and it is a fear that lingers as he climbs, that grows heavier around his feet with each ungrounded step, and when he approaches the opening of his eyes, he feels a great certainty that he was right, he was _right_ to be afraid -

He can still feel the grit when he wakes. The sand over her grave has somehow traveled across the kingdoms to rest in his mouth, and he reaches for water, only to find that there is none. It is dark. His cabin is stifling.

He leaves the small, hot room and goes up on deck. Two more months, perhaps, and he will be back in Acre. Two more months, and he will put an end to these dreams. He will silence the pain.

The waves are black and silent. He stares out at the delicate, lifting shades of pre-dawn while the ship carries him closer, closer.

* * *

Her husband's moans are thin, but they fill the cramped room in which he is dying. Sunlight glows through the window (she wanted to give him light these final days, free him from the darkness of the inner room in which he was at first confined). Her hands move gently over his brow, dampening the fever-hot skin with a linen cloth soaked in jasmine water. She no longer hurries. The urgency she felt in the beginning is gone. Frantic cries and the heavy pounding of pestle against herbs have been silenced. The sickness has won. Now there is only waiting, as one may watch the embers in a stove long after the house is silent and dark with sleep.

He has ceased his restless writhing - his body is too exhausted. But she imagines he is lying still because he is listening, watching. She sings with a hushed voice, and speaks to him of her love and of the happiness he has given her.

The helplessness is vast. She puts her hand in his, and despite her desire for him to be at peace, when he closes his eyes, she is afraid to let go.


	2. Chapter 2

**Bound Home**

**Chapter 2  
**

* * *

_The solitary goose does not drink or eat,  
It flies about and calls, missing the flock.  
No-one now remembers this one shadow,  
They've lost each other in the myriad layers of cloud.  
It looks into the distance: seems to see,  
It's so distressed, it thinks that it can hear.  
Unconsciously, the wild ducks start to call,  
Cries of birds are everywhere confused. _

-Du Fu, The Solitary Goose

* * *

Wander.

The sand dances, the sun burns, the autumn sky is empty, and he wanders within Palestine's embrace searching for a grave. The golden desert is spread out before him like the ocean floor, and the sky is the water, somehow lifted to allow him passage in this secret, silent place.

The English warriors did not doubt him. He asked about a woman, and they asked nothing in return. Their faces were sunburned and knowing as they pointed east. "We heard about her," they said over their bowls of cold stew. "That she died trying to save the king. What was her name?"

His mouth seemed shaped for one purpose - to recount to every passing listener the tale of his betrayal, to drive the sword into his own flesh, to live it again and again and again.

"Marian," he said.

Their gazes turned toward the rising sun. _Marian. _He saw it in their eyes, their putting a name to the story buried beneath the sand, a name to the woman they remembered only when a weary traveler happened to ask about her.

The king she died for is no longer even here.

He left the Crusaders to their meal without another word. He thinks about their empty, tired faces as he journeys in the direction they gave him.

* * *

Time flows around her like river water around a rock. She is unmoved by the passage of the hours, yet they still wear away at her edges in an erosion too slow and constant to be noticed. The days fade into nights and nights fade into days, but she is still in a dark, hot room, holding her hand to a burning face and staring into eyes that no longer know her. Still watching a chest struggle to rise, watching it fall, waiting for the next breath as if her own depends on it, until that breath fails to come. Still watching that motionless, empty chest. Reliving it again, and again, all other memories ground to dust by the crushing weight of that one hour, that dark room, that fever and that life and that death. She remembers every second of his last night.

She must leave this place before she goes mad.


	3. Chapter 3

**Bound Home**

**Chapter 3  
**

_Here, beside a clear deep lake,  
You live accompanied by clouds;  
Or soft through the pine the moon arrives  
To be your own pure-hearted friend.  
You rest under thatch in the shadow of your flowers,  
Your dewy herbs flourish in their bed of moss.  
Let me leave the world. Let me alight, like you,  
On your western mountain with phoenixes and cranes._

-Chang Jian, At Wang Changlin's Retreat

* * *

He thinks of the life he left in his country without regret. He has conquered old ghosts, resurrected the boy he had once been, the boy of faith and fairness. He has found brothers, friends. He has experienced for the first time what it is to have an ally he can trust.

No, there are no regrets. Nottingham is now his victory. But there is one ghost that lingers, and it is here, in the Holy Land, whispering his name and calling him back into the darkness.

She entangles him even now.

He brought wine, just in case he decided to face her with senses too dull to feel the affliction, but the wineskin sits now abandoned at his side, slumped over in the sand, unopened. The pain is not fresh.

He slouches beside her grave. The two years in between her death and his return – vanished. He understands, now, that so much of the goodness he found with his brothers-in-arms originated here, with her body and the echo of her brightness. Her cruelty did, for a time, overshadow him. For forgotten months, he buried himself in the carcass of his mistakes, searching out never-endingly the paths he should have taken. But the madness subsided. It was not long before he saw how much of that cruelty was deserved. It was not long before he saw in himself the better man she tried to awaken.

He still wants to be someone new. He still wants to be the man who sometimes, in certain flashes of candlelight, had lived within the turn of her careful, quiet smiles.

Night is falling. The first breath of autumn chills his skin. He sits with her and his memories, recalling exactly the way she would push her hair behind her ear and watch him from the corner of her eye.

* * *

She walks for days, unhurried, patient, following the snowfall into the mountains. The climb is arduous, but the exertion is a kindness to her aching bones. One midday, she reaches the first patch of snow. Autumn winds wash the clouds away, and she can see clearly in the distance a lone speck of white on gray – a goat, picking its way down the slope. The quiet is peaceful.

The al-Yahud in the market, who have only a passing acquaintance with her faith, asked her why she did not want wailing women for the funeral. _This_, she thinks as her eye traces the flight of cranes in the southern sky. _This is why. _Settled on the ridges of Lebanon, it is easy to feel that the mountains grieve with her, and it is no screaming, sobbing thing that can be bought for a few pieces of silver. It is vast, and it is eternal. Here, she can mourn.

The farther up she climbs, the colder it becomes. The trees thin out, the grass disappears. She reaches a snow-covered outcropping and stops to turn and gaze upon the wilderness below. The wind searches through her clothes. She feels a chill on her face - her tears, turned to frost.


	4. Chapter 4

**Bound Home**

**Chapter 4  
**

_Mist veils the cold stream, and moonlight the sand,  
As I moor in the shadow of a river-tavern,  
Where girls, with no thought of a perished kingdom,  
Gaily echo A Song of Courtyard Flowers. _

_ -_Du Mu, A Mooring on the Qin Huai River

* * *

There is no direction. He spent the night at Marian's grave and now wakes to find his clothes and hair invaded with sand, and thinks only to stand and stare at the stretching sky, wondering what there might be for him to do now that his journey is done.

He wonders what _she_ would want him to do. Last night, in his dreams, she was as brilliant and cold as the stars. Now in the blossoming heat of morning, she is just a memory, a once-was, a never-again. He still does not know why he came here. He only knows that there was a burning ache to be close to her again, and now that he is close, as close as he will ever be, the ache remains.

He draws in the sand – some idle arc, perhaps the curve of her cheek. He cannot bring himself to leave. Marian is untouchable, but he could not stop himself from coming here; he trembles at the distance that separates them even now.

He knows he should abandon this foolishness. The desert sun is already beginning to sap his strength, and to stay is to perish. He shakes his head. He will go now, but only for a while. He will return.

She will be waiting, always.

* * *

Kalid tells her to fetch a bottle of almond oil. She goes to the shelf, but stares at it blindly - her mind has gone blank. The cabinet is as large as the wall, filled with every herb and medicine imaginable, and she has studied each and every one, knows their exact location – she organized the collection herself. The oils are conspicuous and at eye-level, a group of bottles bulbous and slim, tapered and round, colored green or blue or brown.

She has forgotten why she came here.

"Saffiya," the physician calls from the other room. His voice is distant, and she continues to stare, unblinking. She does not want to remember. She does not want to move.

Her mind drifts.

In the moonlight, his hands look like carved marble.

He jerks about in his fever-dream, and she tries to steady him, tries to soothe him with soft words and touches, but he is wracked with some delusion, and he is right there in her arms but as far away as the stars-

"_Saffiya_."

Dusty sunlight. A wall of glittering glass.

Kalid is in the doorway, and he again asks for the oil. She nods, and as she hands him the bottle, she keeps her face turned the wall, too proud to let him see how the grief has overwhelmed her.


	5. Chapter 5

**Bound Home**

**Chapter 5**

* * *

_Orioles call for a thousand_ li_, green's reflected in the river;  
Waterside village; hillside rampart; wine; a banner in the wind.  
In the time of the southern dynasties, there were four hundred and eighty temples;  
How many pavilions there are now in the mist and rain. _

-Du Mu, Spring South of the River

* * *

The sea is dangerous in the winter, the men at the docks all say as they watch ships come in with the high tide. One man tells him he speaks English – and he does, in a heavy, rolling accent. He asks Guy where he comes from.

_Nowhere, _he thinks. The word sits on his tongue, right and natural.

"England," he answers instead.

The stranger stares at him with gold-dark eyes. "Wait," he says after a moment, and hurries away into the crowd of crates and gulls. Guy watches him disappear into a whitewashed building, and then turns back to look out over the sea, only faintly curious as to what the man is up to. He came here in an effort to decide if he wants to go back to his own country. Robin bid him farewell with the promise that Guy would always have a place among his men. Archer simply said, _Do what you_ _must, and don't come back until you have finished_.

How will he ever be finished? His purpose in coming here is a mystery. England is no longer the deep scar in his chest; Acre holds nothing for him but painful memories and the false comfort of Marian's bones. It makes sense to go back home.

But he finds he is content to lean against the wall and stare at the stone-blue sea.

"My friend!"

The stranger has returned. He has a kettle and two cups, and he sets them down on a nearby crate. As he pours, steam redolent with jasmine billows into Guy's face. Surprised at the generosity, he nods his thanks and takes a sip of the tea. Its heat is welcome on this cold, gray afternoon.

The stranger takes a sip as well, and briefly closes his eyes in appreciation. "Now," he says. "Why have you come to Acre?"

Guy stares into his cup and ponders. There are many answers, but only one truth. "A mistake," he replies. He lifts his gaze to the stranger's and says as kindly as he can, "I'd rather not talk about it."

"Ah," he nods back. "Yes."

They drink. The stranger turns his dark eyes to the sea. "In this season, strong winds can come suddenly - a terrible storm from a clear sky, even. I have seen it. Very dangerous. But these men...life must go on, I think? It does not stop for dangerous weather."

Guy studies the man standing next to him. He does not appear to belong to the peasant class, and he also does not appear to be overseeing any of the workers. He seems uninterested in the ships themselves. "What brings you to the port?"

"Ah," he says. "To remember. Or, to forget."

The skies are darkening. The shipmen hesitate in their work as they cast wary looks at the clouds. Guy inhales the tea's fragrance and lets the hot liquid pool in his mouth. "Every man has his mistakes," the stranger says. "Every man has something to forget."

* * *

The thought comes to her just as she is falling asleep. She sits up, startled – how could she have neglected to let them know? His brother; Robin; _Allan. _

She stubs her foot in the darkness, a penalty for hurrying and not giving her eyes time to adjust to the moonlight that spreads, like a spider's new web, from the window to the floor. She lights a candle, sits at her desk, brushes aside the pile of physicians' scrolls and books, and lays down a clean sheet of parchment.

Her quill _tap-taps _against the inkwell, then hovers above the desk. She is uncertain how to begin, or even to whom she should be writing. She does not know where her husband's brother lives now. All she can recall is the healer, Matilda, who is learned enough to read and who would be capable of forwarding the message to Robin, who then, perhaps knowing where Will's brother lives, would be able to send it on to him.

She writes a brief note to Matilda, asking that she deliver her message to Robin Hood or one of his men, and then pulls out another sheet of parchment.

_ January 4 1196_

_ Robin, John, Much, Allan. _

_ Friends, I do not know how you are faring, but I pray for you often and hope this letter finds you all well. I write to tell you that Will Scarlet took ill late last summer. _

The _scritch-scratch_ of her quill ceases. She stares at the black ink and at all the empty page below it.

She scrawls a short phrase about how her husband's fever was swift; how he suffered but a little. His grave is near Marian's, she adds, and again she lifts the nib off of the parchment and leans back to stare at her words, thinking they have come from someone else, a stranger.

Her hand has started to shake. There are too many things she wants to write to them, because they are the only ones who will understand what perfection the world has lost – no one wanted to know him, no one cared about his bravery and his goodness, they only cared about his skin and hers - and now she is overcome with a million words, and it is too much. It is too much.

The letter must wait. She lets the tears overwhelm her, and though she eventually puts away her writing tools and blows out the candle, she does not stir from her chair until dawn.


	6. Chapter 6

**Bound Home**

**Chapter 6  
**

* * *

_Green hills are indistinct, water stretches far,_

_The end of autumn south of the river - grass and trees are withered._

_Twenty-four bridges under the bright moon tonight,_

_Where are the beautiful people blowing flutes of welcome?_

Du Mu, "Sent to Assistant Magistrate Han Chuo of Yangzhou"

* * *

His countrymen take him by the arm and pull him into a well-lit house, laughing about something he doesn't understand and giving him smiles full of gleaming teeth and rancid breath. He looks around the packed room and realizes it is a tavern. Empty and turned-over mugs are scattered on the tables, a fire burns huge and bright in the hearth, and Englishmen fill the air with their drunken songs and chatter. Nearly all of them are clothed in local garb, as he himself is, their Crusade armor having been abandoned years ago. He knows their story – men who came to fight, who managed to survive, and who decided to stay in their victory city, carving out a life for themselves, defiant Christians in the midst of their former, but not forgotten, enemies.

Where did you fight? they all want to know, and he has the same answer for every man who asks: "In this city, briefly."

We've never seen you around.

"I've recently returned."

Why? You've come to see the Holy City?

"No."

(Laughter). You have the look of a pilgrim.

No more is asked of him. They pull him down into a seat and give him a drink and tell him to relax, for "You are with friends."

_No_, he thinks, reluctantly sipping his drink. _Not tonight. _

* * *

She can feel the woman's gaze even when her back is turned, as she mixes a poultice, scrunching her nose against the pungent odor of cooked onions. It's a familiar sensation, being watched. It's easier now to ignore.

Her patient draws in a sharp breath as the hot poultice is pressed against her arm, into the abscess that swells just below her elbow, but she quickly relaxes, and again stares unabashedly.

She waits at her patient's side, looking at the inflamed skin without seeing it. Finally, she lifts her gaze.

The woman's skin is pale. Her eyes are pools of dark amber. "You are with an Englishman."

It is not a question. Djaq, familiar with this as well, makes no reply.

"I have seen him with you," the woman says, sure of herself. "How could you bring such dishonor among us?"

Djaq lifts one corner of the poultice and sees that it is already working to draw out the infection. A trickle of clear, yellowish liquid has begun to course down her patient's arm.

"I did no such thing," she replies, pressing the plaster again into the wound. "He was an honorable man."

"Was."

Djaq meets her eyes briefly. "Yes."

A little boy comes into the room, cheeks flushed from the cold, and waits in the doorway. Djaq hands his mother a list of directions. "Apply this mixture three times a day for the next two days, and then switch to the root poultice for another two days. If the pus does not continue running clear, come back."

When the patient stands, her boy comes near to take her hand and stare up at Djaq with the same amber eyes as his mother. There is a silence. She can feel the weight of a thousand unsaid words, and knows with great exhaustion that some of them will be – must be - spoken.

"How did he die," the woman asks, as if it is her right to know. She clutches her child close to her legs, one hand on her other arm where the poultice still steams and draws.

"A fever," Djaq replies, tired of being gracious but unwilling to give in to her anger. "Why do you ask such a question?"

"He did not die in battle?"

"He was..." She is about to say _He was not a warrior_, but that isn't true, not really. He _did _make war. He did fight. But the things he fought against are wrapped up in too much history, and this woman, she thinks, does not deserve to know it. So she sighs and says instead, "He saved my life. He was a man of peace."

The woman continues to give her a hard stare. But there is, perhaps, a lessening of the anger within it.

"Be well," Djaq says, and turns away to go into her inner rooms.


	7. Chapter 7

**Bound Home**

**Chapter 7  
**

* * *

_South go the wildgeese, for leaves are now falling,  
And the water is cold with a wind from the north.  
I remember my home; but the Xiang River's curves  
Are walled by the clouds of this southern country.  
I go forward. I weep till my tears are spent.  
I see a sail in the far sky.  
Where is the ferry? Will somebody tell me?  
It's growing rough. It's growing dark. _

-Meng Haoran, Memories in Early Winter

* * *

The moon seems as if it will settle right into the desert sand, so low it hangs in the star-thick sky. He walks toward it with weaving steps. When he takes a swig from his wineskin, he tastes desert grit along with the flush of last harvest's grapes. The monk who sold it to him told him to be careful. _New wine is hard on the flesh. _

Guy thought it a good idea to take that wine and be careful with it by himself, in the wilderness, five miles from the city, in the dead of a winter night. The monk's words hold true. He now has no idea which direction will take him back to Acre. He feels warm despite the bitter cold. His breath mists into the air, and disappears.

He wonders now if this was why he left England. To be here, to be lost, to punish himself all over again because, no matter how hard he fought for his own goodness – no matter how hard Robin fought for it – he does not deserve to win. The scales are unbalanced. His few good deeds cannot atone for years of cruelty.

He did not come here to die, but if Fate will have him, it is honorable to give her the advantage. He thinks of it as a test – if there is any more punishment to be exacted for all his sins, then tonight he will gladly submit. He will drink, and he will stumble toward some horizon, and if by chance he reaches it...

A flash of movement catches his eye. He looks around, then up, and sees an owl flying on silent, snowy wing. It flaps once, then dives, and it skims the rocky ground for a split-second before swooping back up into the sky, its talons empty. He tries to follow its path, but loses sight of it when his gaze crosses the bright moon.

The owl's prey has escaped. Perhaps he, too, will survive the night.

But, he thinks as he takes another swallow of wine, there is time yet before dawn.

* * *

She wakes at the sound of someone banging on her door, and hurries to answer it. The stone floor has finally given up the heat it retained from the day, and the cold bites at her feet as she runs across. A gust of icy air greets her as she pulls open the door.

"You are the healer Saffiya?" a shadow asks.

"I am." Her eyes slowly adjust to the pale pink light of dawn. She sees two men clothed in shadows, and one of them is holding a limp body. She steps aside to let them enter.

"We were coming into the city," one of the men explains as she leads them to a table. "We happened upon him, nearly five miles out. He is cold as ice, but he still breathes."

She moves efficiently throughout the room to gather supplies, lighting candles as she goes. "Do either of you know of the physician Kalid?" She glances over her shoulder to see them nod, and realizes that one of the men is familiar to her – a Frenchman, a former soldier that she has treated before. "Go to him, and bring him here."

"We can trust him?"

She pauses in the middle of unfolding a sheet. "What do you mean?"

They gesture at the body. She turns, and looks. It is a man, bundled up in dark robes, his face obscured - but she can clearly see that he is a foreigner. "Kalid will help," she assures them. "Go now, quickly."

"Thank you," they say as they leave, but their gratitude falls on deaf ears. She is stopped completely, staring at the blue-pale body on her table. His black hair has fallen away from his face.

The linen sheet slips from her hands.


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: **Many thanks to LadyKate1 and Neftzer for their help on this story.

* * *

__**Bound Home**

**Chapter 8  
**

* * *

_There seems to be no one on the empty mountain...  
And yet I think I hear a voice,  
Where sunlight, entering a grove,  
Shines back to me from the green moss. _

-Wang Wei, Deer Park Hermitage

He does not recognize her at first. He is bewildered by memories of a moon as wide as the sky, of a lone bird stealing something away, a spinning canopy of stars. He wakes to find himself in a large room full of sunlight. His mouth is parched, as if he has carried the desert with him on his tongue.

That is when she comes. Petite, a swarthy bird perched at his side. And another memory comes to him. Underground, hidden in the shadows thrown by a dust-filled shaft of sunlight, his arm on fire, and _she _was there.

Robin Hood's Saracen.

She wears a head scarf now, white, plain, which initially confuses him – when he last saw her, she had been posing as a male, her head bare of any covering but for a short crop of black hair. It takes him a long moment of studying her face to be certain his mind is not playing tricks on him, that she is, indeed, the Saracen who fought with Robin.

She asks him how he feels, and he does not, can not answer. She says something about water and leaves. He watches her as she walks away, trying to fit her back into a world he thought he'd emptied of all familiarity.

Her, of all people. A straight connection to Robin, to England. A laugh digs itself up out of his throat, but he's so parched that it only sends him into a coughing fit, and his head begins to pound, his vision sparks, spiraling him into nausea-

"Here, drink."

A hand cools the back of his neck. He takes the cup from her and tries a careful sip of water. The irritation in his throat subsides. He wants to close his eyes, wants to fall back and sleep forever, but she must still be something like the enemy, even after the time and miles that have passed between them. He cannot let his guard down.

She is very close, watching him drink with the studied, neutral eye of a physician. Her nearness burns him, reminding him of so much...

"He is awake!" Guy twists around to see a tall Arab man enter the room, carrying a mug. "How are you feeling?" he asks in a thick accent as he comes to the bedside.

"Well," he answers, glancing at the girl. She moves away and busies herself with tidying up a counter across the room.

"My name is Kalid," the man says. "I have some tea for you. It may taste a bit sweeter than you'd like, but it will help your recover." He hands over the mug, and asks, "Do you remember anything from last night or this morning?"

The tea lets off gentle, fragrant steam. Its taste is indeed sweet, but not intolerable. Guy cradles the warm mug in his hands as he tries to put his memories in order. "I was in the wilderness... I – I don't remember much at all. What happened?"

"You were brought here by two men who had little better sense than you," he replied, "as they, too, were traveling in the night. But Allah appears to have smiled upon you, my friend. Those men knew where to find a physician, and got you here in good time. You were unconscious, sickened by the cold. I do not expect your memory of last night to return, but you should otherwise make a full recovery. Finish that tea, and we will see if you are able to eat something."

Kalid sits at a nearby desk and takes out a book – probably a medical text judging by the illustrations he glimpses from his bed – and appears as though he intends to stay there until Guy drinks all of the tea. The girl has vanished. He swallows more of the drink, willing himself not to take it all in one swig despite his immense thirst. By the time the tea is gone, his headache has lessened.

"Would you like something to eat?" Kalid asks when Guy sets the mug down. "Your stomach is probably not very settled, but something simple will help you regain your strength."

As he speaks, another wave of nausea hits – but Guy is impatient with illness, and is ready to do anything necessary to get back on his feet. He nods, and Kalid tells him he will return with some stew.

He leans back against the bed cushion and closes his eyes. He tries to recall what he intended to do last night that caused him such trouble – but all he can remember is having a mouth full of wine (_hard on the flesh) _and the ghost of an idea that maybe, maybe, he had tried to somehow chase himself away, across the desert and beyond.

* * *

Her apothecary is in order; her stock of herbs is replenished; her medical texts sit neatly stacked on one side of her writing table. The candles are all new, their wicks long and white, and all the sheets and blankets have come fresh from a washing.

There are no patients. She has nothing to do but sit and think. But her mind has led her in circles these past few days, ever since Gisborne left Kalid's care to travel on to who-knows-where. She hopes to never see him again, and yet she has found herself glancing about every time she goes out on errands, looking for a white face and a head of dark, curling hair. The man who tried to kill her and her friends. The man who murdered Marian of Knighton. The man who, just days ago, had sat hunched over in her sickroom, cradling a bowl of soup as if it was his lifeline.

Her first thought upon seeing him laid out on the table – pale face tinged with blue, skin covered in a fine sheen of cold sweat – had been that he was truly dead, and now some kind of justice was returned to the world. But it was a bizarre gift to have his body in her house; for her, practically a stranger, to witness his finality.

Any sympathy she had for him, though, had fled when she discovered that the Frenchmen were right, and that he still breathed. Something inside of her loosened when he finally left her home and Kalid's care, something that had been tight and painful while she was forced to go about her business while he convalesced a few rooms away.

It was an oddity that she still cannot wrap her head around. Why on earth was he in Acre?

The silence of her study holds no answers. She throws on a shawl to ward off the chill of evening, lights the new candles, and spends the late evening hours puzzling over the mystery of his unexpected appearance.


	9. Chapter 9

**Bound Home**

**Chapter 9  
**

* * *

_From the temple, deep in its tender bamboos,  
Comes the low sound of an evening bell,  
While the hat of a pilgrim carries the sunset  
Farther and farther down the green mountain_.

-Liu Changqing, On Parting With the Buddhist Pilgrim Ling Che

* * *

His drinking companion from the port, Aalim, finds him again in the midday quiet. Everyone has left their work to take a meal or to worship, leaving Guy practically alone by the water, a shade tree his only companion.

Until Aalim arrives and slumps into a cross-legged position in the sand. "What do you do these days, Shajarah?"

Guy cocks an eyebrow and gives him a sideways glance. He is tired to the bone, and his tolerance for guesswork has never been high. "Excuse me?"

Aalim smiles and squints into the clear blue sky. "Do you mind? You are as tall as a tree. So: I call you 'tree' since you will not tell me your name."

It makes a lazy sort of sense, Guy thinks. "You never asked for my name."

"It is not polite," Aalim replies with an accompanying shrug.

Guy murmurs an apology and takes a deep breath as he tries to comprehend another aspect of this strange culture. "I am Guy, of Gisborne."

"You prefer to go by that name?"

It is an odd question, one that he doubts he has ever been asked before. "What makes you ask such a thing?"

"Oh," Aalim sighs, eyes still tracing some imaginary line in the sky. "Some of the warriors here...they try to forget themselves. It cannot be easy carrying so much blood on your name." He sways to and fro like the palm tree above them. "You told me before that there was something _you_ wanted to forget."

"Yes," Guy says curtly.

"A man's deeds are recorded in his name. I can call you Shajarah if you prefer."

A smile turns Guy's mouth. "A clean start..."

"You could say that."

"Do you really believe that? That a man can begin anew just by changing his name?"

Again, Aalim shrugs. "Why not? A man's destiny is what he makes of it." He glances at Guy, and then goes back to swaying and staring at the empty sky. The silence stretches between them. "I should have brought wine," he adds as an afterthought.

Guy breathes out a laugh. Shaking his head, he asks, "Why would you choose to waste your time with me? Shouldn't you be...praying, or something?"

"I am not Muslim. I pray when it suits me."

"But you do pray?"

"Oh, yes. A man needs to know there's something greater than himself. Keeps us in our place."

"You have an interesting way of looking at things."

"Do _you_ pray?"

Guy presses his lips together and turns his face away. An emotion he cannot name gathers at the back of his throat.

In the distance, the cry for noon worship echoes in the dry, cold air.

"Well," Aalim says softly, shifting his legs to draw them closer. "Perhaps someone is praying for us."

* * *

Time was different just after her husband died. It was like a courteous stranger trying to weave through a crowd, interrupting the flow of people as little as possible, slipping past quietly and quickly - slipping past her with only a glancing touch. "Excuse me," and gone. Days flashed by like a dream. Before she knew it, months had passed, and she felt untouched, unchanged.

But now it lingers. Now she sits with Time and stares at it, and it at her, and Time makes her feel every passing second as if it is a drop of rainwater trailing ponderously down the wall.

The autumn after Will's death was a morning mist, gone in an instant. But winter has come to make a home inside of her. The loss of her husband is no longer a raging fire of grief – it is the cold grip of loneliness.

She saw Gisborne today. A glimpse of his face, his shoulders, and then he was gone. Her pulse, quickened by the encounter, still has not settled. She dwells on him now, relieved to have the distraction, to have some manner of ignoring the way that Time sits across from her, staring and counting and crushing her with its unmovable weight.

She wants to speak with Gisborne. Her curiosity is burning, and she cannot shake the feeling that she owes it to Will to look into this matter, to make sure that he is not here to do something terrible, something she may be able to prevent. It seems unlikely. Nottingham's sheriff would be a fool to try again to break the peace brokered between King Richard and Salah-al-din – that trick, tried once, is now useless.

But she needs answers. She needs to be out doing something, anything, because these silent hours - these stretching days in her empty rooms, with the unchanging void where only ghosts of old happiness live - she is in their mouth, and she fears that, without purpose and distraction, she will soon be swallowed down.


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N: **Thanks to LadyKate for her help on this chapter. And thank you to everyone who is following this story and who has left reviews.

* * *

**Bound Home**

**Chapter 10  
**

* * *

_The new year's come, but still the plants don't grow,  
First in March I'm startled by grass shoots.  
The white snow thinks the colours of spring are late,  
So through the pavilion and trees it flies like blossom._

-Du Mu, Snow in Spring

* * *

He is speaking with a fellow Englishman, trying to find out what means of work are available to him, when he sees her approach. At first she is just another local, clothed in the typical garb – flowing skirt, long sleeves, an expertly tucked and pinned veil. It is the color that catches his eye at first: bright orange, accented with threads of purple and gold that glint in the sunlight. But then he notices that she is not moving like everyone around her, the shoppers who browse each stall and linger to talk with acquaintances. She is walking directly toward him, her step sure. The market is crowded this morning, but she moves through the crush with ease, and in a few seconds she is standing before him, blank-faced, but with eyes full of both wariness and purpose.

He looks down at her in unconcealed amazement, mouth open but silent. She is waiting, apparently giving him time to decide if he wants to run or if he will stay. His companion clears his throat and asks, "Should we speak some other time, then?"

Still in a fog of surprise, Guy barely registers the question. He turns belatedly and nods, and the Englishman gives the Saracen woman a long, thoughtful look before wandering back into the shade of a nearby stall.

The Saracen – her name, did he ever know it? - takes a step closer. "I did not think to ever see you again," she says.

He swallows past a sudden dryness in his throat. "Nor I you," he answers carefully, "though I suppose that was foolish of me. This city is your home?" She nods. "And you want me gone," he adds, readying himself for a barrage of accusations and threats.

But they never come. She stares at him for a long time, saying nothing. Her face becomes pinched, pained. "Why are you here?" she finally asks.

The same question he has faced again and again since arriving in Acre. He still has no good answer. And his chest burns at the thought of exposing his thoughts to her, of confiding the truth to this not-quite stranger. Though once an ally of Loxley, she is nothing to _him. _

"I'm not here to kill anybody, if that's what's worrying you." He clamps his mouth tightly shut after speaking. The words feel self-incriminating, a bitter attack on himself, and he immediately regrets giving so much away - but she seems to recognize the paled danger he presents, a man more concerned with nursing his wounds than lashing out at others, because she relaxes just a little. Still frowning, she takes a step closer.

"You came for Marian?"

The breath in his lungs vanishes.

Hearing her name said aloud sends him reeling, as if from a blow to the head.

"You know nothing," he replies, knowing himself to sound weightless and distant, and as he looks away, angled to flee, the woman's face becomes lost in the glare of the sun. He feels her hand grip his sleeve. He pauses, but does not turn. The world has lost all color. It is one brilliant white shadow.

Her voice, somehow right at his ear, keeps him anchored. "Why?"

He pulls away, glances behind. Sunbursts dance in his eyes.

The same question, and never a right answer. He plunges into the crowd, and loses himself in the crush of linen and laughter.

* * *

Winter is passing into spring. The lilies are just beginning to bloom, dotting the plains with purple and blue and white. She picks a few fresh blossoms to take to her husband's grave, but when she arrives, the petals are bruised and wilted. She spends a restless hour knelt in the sand. Not knowing what to say, feeling all the cruelty of being so close to him, but so endlessly far away, she only stares at the desert plains, and at the distant mountain peaks that are still covered in last month's snow. The futility of coming here - the absence of comfort, the absence of _Will - _she feels it in her bones and eventually it moves her to stand. She gathers her skirts and heads north.

The markers are scattered and numerous – the dead are all foreigners. Despite Will's conversion to her faith, he had not been buried with her family. Her father's brothers, still reeling from the loss of Acre to the Christians, had not allowed it, but she thinks on the injustice without anger. The war left many wounds. She was not so foolish as to believe that one good man could recover the ground lost by thousands of invaders.

Now she thinks there is some sort of compensation for the banishment – her husband is buried close to Marian.

Her name is etched into a single whitewashed wooden stake. The air is fragrant with approaching rain, and storm clouds have darkened the sky - she will have to leave soon. But she delays, running her fingers through the cold sand. Her memories of the day they buried Marian are a haze, but she does remember seeing Robin at his dying wife's side, clutching her hand, whispering something to her that no one else would dare come close enough to hear.

She has an idea, now, what those words might have been.

A strong wind blows. She lifts her head to see the heavy gray clouds rolling in from the west. The first spatter of rain - delicate, but a promise of something violent – veils her face. As she turns to leave, she notices out of the corner of her eye a set of footprints, leading from Marian's grave back to the city. She follows them, knowing to whom they belong. Gisborne's strong reaction to her mention of Marian was evidence enough that those memories were weighing heavily on his mind. Marian may not be the whole reason for his presence in Acre, but surely she is the reason why the arrogant, casually cruel Master-at-Arms has been replaced by a quiet, lost man. A man she hardly recognizes.

She wonders what happened to him after he left Palestine those two years ago.

She means to find him again. She has more questions for him, and she _will _ask them, no matter how cruel they might be. Her fears must be quieted. She must be sure of him.

She stands just outside the city wall, watching the rain come in. The storm gusts, and the sand scatters, and the two sets of footprints, Gisborne's and her own, vanish as if they'd never been.


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N: **Thanks again to LadyKate for looking over this chapter.

* * *

**Bound Home**

**Chapter 11  
**

* * *

_I met you often when you were visiting princes  
And when you were playing in noblemen's halls.  
...Spring passes... Far down the river now,  
I find you alone under falling petals._

-Du Fu, On Meeting Li Guinian Down the River

* * *

This time when she comes, he is not caught so completely off guard. The surprise of her presence in Acre has worn off, and he has prepared himself for a chance meeting – but he is not prepared for a deliberate knock on his door. When he asks for a name, a firm voice, muffled by the thick wood, responds.

"Saffiya."

He frowns and, for a moment, is at a loss. The name is unfamiliar. The voice, slightly less so. But he's only stalling, waiting for his mind to catch up with his intuition and verify what he already knows – there's really only one person it could be.

At least he has a name now.

He slides back the bolt and opens the door. It is indeed the Saracen healer, and she surprises him again by slipping past him and walking into his room before he can say a word.

He half-twists, looking at some point over his shoulder near where she stands, thinking. He should, by all rights, be grabbing her by the scruff and tossing her back into the alley that runs along this row of rented rooms.

But he only sighs, and closes the door. He throws the bolt out of habit, and stares at it for a long moment, gathering himself for this next trial, this next test of his still-fragile patience. He had found a measure of peace in England, with Robin and his brother, but coming back to the desert has pulled apart the stitches in his badly-mended wounds. This place, where all his nightmares were created, where they still thrive in the dark corners of his dreams, has thrown him outside of that peace. He has felt himself being shaken into his old temper, and now the Saracen's boldness is stretching his limits.

He turns, and gestures with a limp hand at the only chair in the room. "Sit, if you'd like."

She watches him warily and remains silent; that such a fearless woman is now pretending at fear needles him. He lets his arm drop back to his side and shakes his head. "Or just tell me what you've come to say," he emends, moving past her to take a seat on his bed. "Either way, I suggest you hurry." He crosses his arms, pins her with a stare, and waits.

She at last seems to loosen. To his faint surprise, she pulls the chair away from his small desk and sits.

Her lavender hijab is the only spot of color in the sparsely filled room. Her large, almond-shaped eyes seem even darker against her pale head covering, and he reflects that she is now a far cry from the pitiful, unkempt runaway that the sheriff had once so prized. Looking back, he thinks to himself that, despite her small frame and wild condition, she always had the same defiant air that surrounds her now. It is calmer, perhaps, just as his own pride has been drained by time and neglect – but still very much with her. She sits on the edge of the chair, hands locked together, back straight. Her eyes meet his.

"I want to know what you are doing here. Are you with the sheriff?" Her voice falls flat against the bare walls, making her seem nearer than she really is.

"No."

"You are alone?"

He hesitates. He _is _on his own, and if the girl has something planned, it wouldn't do to advertise his vulnerability...

But those are old instincts talking. Echoes of a past he wants to forget. He shrugs off the sheriff's whispers (_lepers, Gisborne)_and answers her calmly. "Yes, I'm here alone. Does that satisfy you?"

She narrows her eyes. "I am not planning on killing anybody, either," she replies, throwing back at him his words from their last meeting.

He blinks at the ceiling to give himself time to control his mounting irritation. "Then why have you come?"

For a moment, she is silent. He resists the urge to lean forward, to get a closer look at the emotions that are warring on her face. He doesn't want to appear interested. She lifts her chin. "Will you tell me how things go on in Nottingham? I know it does not please you to think on Robin Hood, but-"

He sighs, and interrupts her. "He was alive and well last I saw him." Without thought, he runs a finger down his face where there is a long, shallow scar, created by Hood's knife - and by his own madness. "Is that enough? Or do you want to know more?"

A light frown creases her brow. "You would tell me?"

He shrugs one shoulder. "Would it get you out of my room?"

For a long moment, they stare at one another, he forcing an air of complacency, she obviously struggling to figure out how much further she can push him. She somehow figures correctly, because she leans back in the chair and says, "Will you tell me why you have come here? I have asked before. You have not answered me yet."

"Why does it matter to you? I told you you're in no danger."

"It would ease my mind," she replies, a bit sharply.

His tone takes on an edge as well as his patience begins to thin. "How."

"You've been to this land twice before, planning to do terrible things. Now you say you are simply here...visiting? You are living among old enemies. Alone. Changed, I think. It begs to be explained."

"It bothers you this much, my reason for being here."

"I am a child of science," she says with a hint of a smile. "I seek answers."

An ache flares deep in his chest, a wild urge to protect his most painful of secrets. He stands and says, "Seek them elsewhere."

"Please," she says, standing up to meet him in the middle of the small room. "I did not come here to start up an old war."

"Right. You were just 'curious'," he sneers.

"No," she says. "Not 'just'. I think I understand your reasons." He scoffs, but she presses on. "Perhaps you were exiled. Perhaps you lost the sheriff's favor and needed to flee, but why here? Why come to Acre? It is _Marian_that called you here. It must be."

She sounds certain. He glares at her with eyes that are just on the verge of burning - who is this woman, to come to his rooms and pry apart his mind, his heart, to dig out his deepest miseries and bare them before his eyes as though it is nothing? His hands go rigid, struggling to hold in the urge to push her away. To push it_ all_away.

But she remains as she was - subdued, calm. The accusations he expected her to unleash are absent, and in their place is a strange, waiting silence.

His anger flees, a starved and weak creature after these five years of almost-happiness with Robin and Archer. He runs a hand through his hair and then lets it fall to slap against his thigh. His demeanor, he supposes, is confirmation enough, because the Saracen nods and says quietly, "I understand you a little better now, at least."

"You understand me?" he echoes, voice heavy with weary disbelief. "You could not possibly."

"Do not doubt me on this," she replies, with a sharpness that surprises him. "As if you are the only one to have suffered."

He stares at her, mouth hanging slightly open, wondering at what nerve he has just touched. Her eyes are fiery, and then, slowly, the fire fades, and she clutches her hijab to her chest and seems to stare through him as if he is no longer even in the room. In the dusty haze of afternoon sun, he can see something endless and empty in her eyes. "I know what thoughts," she says faintly. "I know what dreams..."

He stands close enough to her to hear her breathe, to study the slight tremor in her hands, to trace the sadness in the lines of her mouth. His wariness has vanished, and in its place is confusion. Fascination.

"Do you?" he murmurs. She lifts her gaze, now looking into his eyes – and the moment passes. She is composed again, closed off. She goes to the door, and as he reaches over her to slide the bolt free, she pulls her hijab closer about her face, pauses in the doorway, and asks, "Do you go to her often?"

He clenches his jaw against the swelling pain in his breast. It hurts to talk about her, hurts so much, too much, as if the day she died is only ever just behind him. "Yes," he says.

The sun has begun to burn the sky with orange clouds. He watches the people milling about in the alley long after the Saracen has gone.

* * *

A saffron seed lies cracked open on her desk. Through her magnifying glass, she studies the germ inside. No hint of the saffron's fragrance drifts to her nose - that treasure remains for the autumn blooms to reveal, and the land is far from autumn. She prods at the shell, and wonders if something might be gained from crushing it into a powder, perhaps creating a paste.

Kalid encourages her curiosity. A master physician himself, he has taught her time and again the value of outstretched thought, of casting a net of ideas into the field of science to see what might turn up. She has no direction to her musings this morning – she simply saw a jar of seeds on the shelf and decided to see what could result from experimenting with them. It is a way to pass the time until a patient arrives, and a way to focus her thoughts so they don't keep straying to a room on the other side of the city.

Gisborne. Their conversation took an unexpected turn. She thought she would be in control, a neutral inquisitor, impassive. But talking of Marian brought back other memories.

She is still amazed at how suddenly and swiftly the pain of Will's death can overpower her.

She feels an unexpected sympathy for Gisborne that, under different circumstances, she would never allow – but death leaves tight bonds of suffering in its wake. And she is not heartless.

She drops a handful of seeds into her pestle. The sound of rock grinding against itself, and of dry seed husks cracking into fine powder, fills the room. It is the sound of her childhood. How many hours she would sit with her father in a room just like this one, watching him grind herbs or boil leaves...

_Do you have my book, Saffiya? _  
_Yes, abba._  
_Write this down for me: for every four quantities of olive oil, mix in two quantities of myrrh. _  
_What does that do?_  
_Finish writing, then come here and I will explain it to you._  
_  
_  
She blows out a heavy sigh.

Gisborne has given her such confusion, and she wishes greatly that her father was here now to give her some direction. What to make of a man who murders the woman he claims to love...and then buries himself in the land of her death, after five years have gone by?

If only men were as easily tested as matter - if only there was some formula to apply to their thinking. She shakes her head, frustrated with her own swirling thoughts. Frustrated with the silence in her rooms. Frustrated that all of these problems are now hers alone, and there is no one who can help her, because they have all been taken from her, and the world is still turning without them, relentless and uncaring.

The mortar suddenly becomes a gray blur. She looks up from her work to wipe her eyes, and is surprised when her hand comes away wet with tears.

She stares at the expanse of her worn desk. A myriad of medicines and books rest upon it, many of them inherited from her father.

She stares at the empty spaces where there was once happiness, purpose, hope.

"Abba," she says, knowing he cannot hear, but moved by some deep desperation to give him a chance to answer.

Of course, there is only silence. She takes in a long, slow breath, and leans back in her chair.

_Will. Will, I'm going mad._  
_  
_  
She buries her hands in her hair and closes her eyes. It is frighteningly easy to imagine that he is only in the next room, and that it is quiet only because he sleeps.


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N: **Thank you **saramagician**, **jadey**, **weaselle**, **manxcatmom**, **calmingbreeze**, **LadyKate**, and everyone else who has reviewed and who is following this story despite it's unforgivably late updates. Your feedback means a lot to me.

* * *

**Bound Home**

**Chapter 12**

_You who have come from my old country,  
Tell me what has happened there ! -  
Was the plum, when you passed my silken window,  
Opening its first cold blossom?_

_ -_Wang Wei, Lines

* * *

"I do not know how to thank you."

Aalim waves a hand. "Think on it no more. I am only happy to help."

Guy, bewildered with gratitude, humbled by it, shakes his head. "You must let me repay your kindness. Had you not offered me the work, I would have been in sore straits indeed."

"You were already in sore straits, my friend." Aalim pours them both another round of tea. "I have no doubt that you will find a way to do some good for me. I can see it in your eyes. You are a man of determination."

"Some would call it stubbornness," he replies. Steam curls into the air from his cup. He stares at the drifting vapor and adds, "Or pride."

Aalim shrugs, and takes a long sip of tea. Guy follows suit, deciding it best to drop the subject, knowing that he will indeed do what honor demands of him. Once he has started work and is able to provide for himself, he will think of some way to show his friend how much his generosity means.

The inside of Aalim's house is pleasantly warm, despite the cold spring wind that blows, and for a long stretch of time the two men sit in silence, enjoying the fresh morning air and their black tea. But Guy eventually, reluctantly, abandons his reverie and leans forward. Something has been tugging lately at the back of his mind. He breaks the peaceful quiet with a question. "Do you happen to know a physician named Saffiya?"

Aalim nods. "Of course. She is the only woman in the city who actively treats patients. She is working under the guidance of a particularly knowledgeable physician named Kalid. Why do you ask?"

"I...came across her a few months ago. She helped save my life, as it turns out."

"Oh?"

He instantly regrets bringing up the matter – Aalim is now glowing with curiosity. He shifts in his seat, and says, "I got lost in the desert a few miles outside the city. It was in the middle of winter. I don't remember much of what happened, but somebody must have found me and carried me to her house."

"You do not know who brought you in from the desert?"

He lowers his gaze and grimaces. "No, and I have not tried to find out. How would I face such a man? I was in a pitiful state."

Aalim takes in a long, deep breath through his nose, and pins him with a dark stare. "You were drunk."

Guy glances down, instinctively trying to distance himself from the topic. "...Perhaps. Yes."

"And you...what, passed out, miles from home? I am not surprised you are ashamed. It is not, however, an excuse to avoid your obligation. Someone out there saved your life. You owe him your thanks."

It is exactly what he expected to hear. He had known ever since Saffiyah had come to his rooms, full of questions and something almost like desperation, that he would have to go to her again. The thought of it fills him with anxiety, as if he is going to face a priest rather than a physician.

_Do you go to her often?_

He pulls away from the memory of her tears and sharp words, and finds Aalim has been staring at him, obviously wondering where Guy's mind has wandered. "You're right," he says quickly. "I will go to her, and ask her to help me find the man who rescued me."

Aalim nods approvingly. No more is said about Saffiya or about a winter night's madness in the desert wasteland. Aalim knows when to press, and when to simply sit quietly and enjoy his morning tea.

Guy spends the next hour at his friend's table, thinking back on Saffiyah, and when it is time for him to depart, he leaves Aalim's home having reached the conclusion that there is something besides gratitude that is owed to her.

* * *

It is almost with relief that she greets him. She has been arguing with herself these three weeks, wondering if she is in her right mind to want to speak with Gisborne. But she is still burning with curiosity - and he is still in Acre.

He comes in through the side door, the entrance that leads directly to her examination room; his gaze immediately lands on the bed where he was brought back to consciousness some three months ago. She is not nervous. She is no longer wary. If he wanted to hurt her, he would have taken the other opportunities he's had. So she pulls out her desk chair for him, and he hesitates, but lowers himself into it. She leans against the bed, crosses her arms. She is almost ashamed of what she said to him the last time they spoke, and her stomach twists at the possibility that he has somehow found out about Will - that she, in a fit of anger, threw him the key to her innermost self and now this nightmare of a man will unlock those secrets; that he knows of her loss, and he will sneer at it as though it is nothing.

But when Gisborne speaks, it is not of her husband, and his words force her back into the reality that this is not the past, and he is not the man she remembers.

"When I was brought in..." He clears his throat, shifts in his seat - the very picture of discomfort. He mutters, "Can you tell me who found me? I was hoping I could reach this person, to thank him."

Surprised by the question, it takes her a moment to find her voice. "It was two men, actually. One of them is a soldier by the name of Jacques D'arcy. You will find him in the French enclave. I do not the know the name of the other man, but I am sure D'arcy will tell you."

"Thank you."

He lowers his gaze, and does not move to leave. She stares at the top of his head, bewildered. "Is that all you came for?"

He takes a breath, and then holds it, contemplating, struggling. She waits. After a moment, he blows out the breath, looks her in the eye, and says with soft determination, "I do not know how to explain myself to you. I have such stories as you would not believe." He shocks her with a smile – it is one sad, short lift of one side of his mouth – and then he throws his hands up in a gesture of defeat. "I will tell you, though, if you will listen."

She frowns. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, you told me something of yourself the last time we met, and I was not...I wasn't kind. I mean to do better, if I may."

There is nothing he could have said that would have been more bewildering. She shakes her head, trying to make sense of this stranger sitting across from her, but she cannot comprehend him. At a complete loss, she answers him. "Speak, then."

He licks his lips and nods. "Very well. You asked about Nottingham. Well, I have some interesting news..."


	13. Chapter 13

**A/N: **Thank you so much to everyone who has reviewed. **weaselle**, **manxcatmom**, glad to hear that you're liking the adjustments. **sarahmagician, **thanks for sticking with the story despite the ridiculous lag in updates. **jadey, LadyKate, rohwyn**, everybody else: thank you for your kind words and encouraging reviews. They mean so much to me.

* * *

**Bound Home **

**Chapter 13**

_While worldly matters take their turn,  
Ancient, modern, to and fro,  
Rivers and mountains are changeless in their glory  
And still to be witnessed from this trail.  
Where a fisher-boat dips by a waterfall,  
Where the air grows colder, deep in the valley,  
The monument of Yang remains;  
And we have wept, reading the words. _

-Meng Haoran, On Climbing Yan Mountain with Friends

* * *

Her dark eyes are critical. He can feel the measuring, the weighing - his word against her experience. When he finishes telling her the long tale of his life in the years after Marian's death (excepting only Isabella, the ancient wound that is past healing), she studies him for a long moment, and then says into the waiting silence, "That is an exceptional story."

His breath halts. He asks, carefully, "You do not believe me?"

"I _do _believe you. That story is too complicated and strange to be anything but true."

He feels an insult hiding somewhere in that reply, and frowns, unsure of her and a bit afraid of the judgement that seem to lurk at the turn of her mouth. "Oh?"

He has quickly come to realize that Saffiya is a woman of great frankness, and she does not disappoint him now. "Deception has never been your strong point," is her quick retort. "You are too simple for such an amazing lie."

He flushes with anger, but his pride - so long starved - cannot sustain it. He bows his head in concession, and finds himself instead fighting back a slight smile at her boldness. "I would not fault you for thinking me a liar. I myself sometimes question how this all came about."

"I have great faith in Robin's goodness," she replies. "He does not easily forgive, but when he does, he does so completely."

He looks up at her. "You sound as though you have experience with his forgiveness."

She shakes her head. "Not I – Allan A'Dale."

Guy nods, immediately understanding. And then a thought occurs to him, and he glances at Saffiya, mouth open to speak – but he stops himself. She notices.

"What is it?"

Allan's loyalty to his fellow outlaws was his constant feature, even in his betrayal. Guy knows he felt real affection for his friends, including Saffiya, and he doubts that those strong feelings were not mutual. He cannot imagine that this news will not pain her. "I'm sorry to tell you...he was killed" - she instantly stiffens, and he slows, regretting each word - "not long before the final battle at Nottingham Castle."

The silence that follows is long and terrible. He watches her struggle to keep her emotions masked – it's all in the play of her mouth, trembling and pulling, and in her eyes as they tighten, gaze falling to the floor and then darting about the room in what he knows, from experience, is a futile attempt to find something that will provide distraction. There is nothing. She eventually covers her face with her hands, and he sits quietly, waiting with bone-deep patience for her to gain some mastery over herself.

He does not have to wait long. Only a few seconds later, she lowers her hands, hauls in a breath, and says quietly, as if speaking to herself, "I wrote to them. To Robin and the others – to Allan. To tell them about...and I wondered if they were alright. These have been dangerous times for us all, and I knew, of course, that there was a chance..."

She is stone-faced. Her brow is clear and straight, but underneath it he sees unshed tears, and eyes as glistening and black as the night sky. He is, for the first time, struck by her beauty. The lines of her face are at once strong and delicate. Her skin is browned both by lineage and by sun, and though he once dismissed her as nothing more than a native of some distant, meaningless land, he believes he is truly seeing her now - not as an enemy, not as a foreigner, but as a young woman bearing up under great suffering.

He saw a glimpse of it a few weeks ago, before he understood her enough to know what it meant.

"You tried to tell me something, when last we met," he says softly. "You implied...I'm sorry, it's not my place to ask. I was angry with you, for asking such questions - I wasn't sure what you were trying to tell me..." He trails off, at a loss as to how to explain himself.

She closes her eyes for a moment and gives him a small nod. "I asked those questions because I needed to be sure of you. You understand, I knew nothing of what had happened in England. I did not know for a certainty that your coming back to Acre was not related somehow to Prince John."

"Yes. Of course."

She moves away from the bed and takes wandering steps in the middle of the room. Her face is still tight, haunted. "So you have come here to for Marian," she says, and though the change in subject throws him, he does not think of lying.

"Yes."

Again she nods, and looks at the door, and then at him. Her voice is very quiet. "Take me to her."

The request shocks him, repulses him. He swallows back an immediate refusal. "Why?"

"Please."

Her stare is heavy. Another silence hangs over them, but this time she is the one waiting, and he is the one struggling to control his emotions. He pleads. "It is...difficult for me. Being there."

She says nothing, but continues to hold his gaze until he feels like a coward, and grows angry with himself for his weakness. He drags himself to his feet. He cannot help glaring at her with something like accusation – _how dare you put this burden on me – _but she is now looking very lost, and he finds himself lowering his eyes and moving to the door, opening it for her, ushering her out into the sunlight.

He didn't expect her to talk, but when they pass the city gates, she hugs herself and says, "You think me strange."

Unnerved by the nearness of what is about to happen, he bites out, "Honestly? Yes."

"Stranger than you making peace with Robin Hood?"

He clenches his jaw, dreading every step through the sand. "I suppose not," he allows. "But does it please you to see me shaken? Do you do this to see me suffer for my crimes?"

"No. It is not my place to punish. Judgment belongs with God."

"You mean you have never wished to take your revenge on me, or the sheriff - or on the men who have conquered this city?" he asks, incredulous.

A gust of wind whips through their loose clothing. She pulls her thin scarf up over her mouth. "Of course I have," she replies. She glances up at him as the wind dies down. "But revenge is a fire that can burn only so long as you feed it." Another gust. She drops her gaze.

Saffiya is several inches shorter than he, and with her head bowed all he sees is the expanse of her _hijab_ and her hand clutching the end of the cloth to keep it over her face. She is very small, he realizes. Fine-boned, but he cannot recall ever thinking her fragile. "You sound like the friar," he finally says.

She looks up. "Who?"

"The one who rescued Robin and joined in his fight. Friar Tuck."

"These friars, they are holy men?"

He shrugs. "If there is such a thing."

"You do not believe in God?"

He swallows, and feels grit in his mouth. "No, I do. I must." He shakes his head. "But my faith is hardly strong. It cannot be so surprising. You must have seen many men lose their way here."

"For different reasons," she replies with a knowing look.

They are approaching the graves. Dozens of wooden stakes pierce the sand, casting thin shadows in the rich, golden light of late afternoon. "So why are you bringing me here?" he asks again.

"I want to be sure of you."

Guy stops and turns to face her. She meets his eye, mouth once more set in a determined line that he is coming to understand is a fixture. She is stubborn, and brave, a combination he is too familiar with – it reminds him of Marian. But the Saracen has no trace of the deceit which so constantly marked Marian's behavior. Her manner is all blunt honesty and openness.

"Am I supposed to know what that means?" he asks after it becomes clear that she will say no more.

She looks away, gaze landing on Marian's grave, and begins to walk toward it. He falls into step with her. "You will," she says.

They reach the nondescript patch of sand and stand in silence. He doesn't want to be here with her. His skin itches. It feels like an intrusion into his private world, a world where only he and Marian exist, a world that has brought him pain and solace in equal measure. But he cannot ask Saffiya to leave. She brought him here for a reason, and he intends to give her the time at least to say what she must – he owes her that, if not for saving his life, than at least as a sort of repentance for doing her so much wrong in Nottingham. He looks back on those days with real sorrow. He didn't blink twice when the sheriff took Saffiya prisoner, knowing what brutality awaited her if she was disobedient – didn't lift a finger. And how did she repay him? By bringing him back from the brink of death, and asking not for a single word of thanks.

He finds it easier to look at her than at the grave, but he cannot hold her eye when she turns to gaze up at him.

"I did not know her well," Saffiya says. "She was a woman of many secrets."

He stares at the distant mountains. His throat constricts. Secrets – yes, Marian had many. "She never gave over to me," he says, unable even in this moment to stop dwelling on past cruelties.

He can practically feel the Saracen picking her next words.

"She loved Robin."

Guy squeezes his eyes shut. When would that truth cease to pry him apart? "I know," he says, and then clears his throat and opens his eyes. "She betrayed me." He feels for a brief, insane moment that Marian will hear him, and will rise from the sand to drag him down, to bury him for his accusations. He resists the urge to take a step away.

"How?"

He turns an astonished look on Saffiya, and bites out, "You mean you do not know? Did Robin not tell you how she used me to her own ends? She lied to me, again and again. Playing the angel..." His lips twist into a bitter frown. "And I fell for it. She made me hope..." He rubs at his face, suddenly exhausted. "Why did you bring me here? What do you want from me?"

"You loved her."

He does not answer. The truth sticks in his throat. "You keep coming back here for a reason," she continues, "so tell me – why did you do it? Why kill the one you loved?"

Always the same question, always. He knows he is close to tears, but he is powerless to stop them as they well into his eyes, clouding his vision. "I never meant to," he finally says. "I never wanted...it happened in an instant. She was so near, and my blade - She promised me everything, and then she just-" The old anger flares again to life. It burns him, swallows him whole, as the memory of that day plays in his eyes like flashes of sunlight on steel. "It had all been a lie, and she laughed at my pain. She _laughed_." He shakes his head, twists his hands together to stop them from trembling. "I was never good enough."

"Did you try to be?"

It is a terrible question. He makes no attempt to avoid the blow, being far too familiar now with the truth. Head hung low, he answers. "No. No, not nearly enough."

She puts her hand on his shoulder. "Do you ask her for forgiveness?"

Her touch is gentle. He draws himself out of the daze of the past, and sets his face to the sun, still bright as it sits low in the late afternoon sky. He remembers all the hours spent in this exact spot, weeping and cursing, hating and begging, lost and scouring the heavens for some sign that Marian was listening. "Yes," he replies.

Her hand moves down his arm, catching his fingers briefly - "Then Allah, at least, forgives you." - and then her touch is gone.

Before he can summon a response, she nods her head at the western sky and says, "Now I can show you."

* * *

To her surprise, he recognizes the name. He stares at the grave marker for a long moment, and then drags his eyes to hers. They are tight, sincere. "Your husband."

"Robin spoke of us?"

He nods, smiles sadly. "Much often lamented the loss of Will Scarlet's carpentry skills. They talked about you both." He pauses. They both have their gazes set on the grave. It is just like Marian's, plain and indistinguishable from the rest of the desert land. She hears Gisborne shift on his feet. "How long...?"

Yesterday. A lifetime ago. She feels the loss start to pull and burn in her chest. "Last summer. A fever took him after a short illness."

Gisborne surprises her again when he touches her sleeve, meets her eye and says, "I am sorry."

She holds his gaze, seeing complete sincerity, hearing it in his voice. She is still wondering at Gisborne's transformation into a man of honor, a man capable of fighting alongside his former sworn enemy. She is even more amazed at Robin's capacity for forgiveness. But she supposes she is seeing now what Robin must have seen – a man broken apart by his crimes, a man who wanted to be something better. A man ready for a change.

She wonders what Will would have thought of this.

"No one here knew him," she says, the words tumbling from her lips without any conscious thought to form them. "They saw Will only as a foreigner. And he had no friends among the other Englishmen – he converted to our faith, and I think they considered that a betrayal. When he died, it was only I who mourned. The others...did not understand us. They did not know him, else they _would_ have grieved as I did."

"I'm sorry," Gisborne says again.

She closes her eyes against the burn of tears. "Thank you."

The sun has begun to set. She feels a coolness in the air. When she opens her eyes, she sees the sky turning red, and the sand reflecting it back in soft shades of pink.

Gisborne remains at her side. The sun has nearly reached the horizon when he breaks the silence. "I would like to know more about him, if you'd tell me. Men of honor deserve to have their stories told."

There is a twinge in her heart, painful and deep. "That's why you brought me here, why you came for me," he says with quiet certainty. "Because you wanted to know if you could trust me with this. Because you know I'll understand. Marian...and your husband."

She stares up at him, mouth set against the grinding heat of old grief.

He bows his head and she runs her gaze over his black hair, his furrowed brow, and hears him murmuring, echoing, "What thoughts, what dreams..."


	14. Chapter 14

__**A/N: **Thanks again to everyone for the wonderful reviews. **  
**

* * *

**Bound Home  
**

**Chapter 14  
**

_The autumn night is clear and cold in the lakka-trees of this courtyard.  
I am lying forlorn in the river-town. I watch my guttering candle.  
I hear the lonely notes of a bugle sounding through the dark.  
The moon is in mid-heaven, but there's no one to share it with me.  
My messengers are scattered by whirls of rain and sand.  
City-gates are closed to a traveler; mountains are walls in my way -  
Yet, I who have borne ten years of pitiable existence,  
Find here a perch, a little branch, and am safe for this one night._

- Du Fu, Staying at the General's Headquarters

* * *

Spring comes late. The almond trees barely started to bloom by the first day in April, but now, two weeks later, he sees them covered in flowers. Thanks to Aalim's generous offer of an introduction to the shah's secretary two months ago, he has been tutoring a bright, inquisitive prince in French. They are seated in the courtyard of his pupil's house, surrounded by white walls and blossoming branches. A wind comes to stir the trees and shakes loose a few petals. He watches one slip of pale pink as it floats to the ground, and then lifts his eyes to the bright blue sky.

"What do you call moments like this?" the prince asks, his French heavily accented but understandable. He, too, is gazing up at the blossoms and the sky beyond. Guy's mind is slow to produce an answer, transfixed by the beauty of heaven framed by earth.

Eventually an answer drifts into his mind. "Serene," he tells the prince, and he faintly hears the young man repeat the word in his careful, precise manner.

The silence gives Guy's thoughts time to shift and settle, to realize that this calm is altogether new to him. He sits with the prince in companionable quiet, and Guy watches the almond blossoms flutter in the breeze, breathes in their perfume, and idly hopes that one might happen to fall into his open, waiting palm.

He is glad he is not yet in England.

* * *

Kalid has his arms full of books – one of which threatens to slide and fall – but he pauses in the doorway and asks, "Saffiya – you have been well?"

From the way he looks at her, she knows he is not asking about her health. She has never confided in him, and he has never pried, for reasons she suspects are based on the color of her husband's skin. But today is a change. Today he looks as though he is sincere, and this question is an attempt at mending a rift that neither had ever acknowledged.

She, however, has not changed. Her privacy – her grief - is sacrosanct. "Yes," she says.

He simply nods, ducks through the doorway, and disappears into the bright sunlight. She stares at that light for a moment, lingering in his absence, feeling less alone by herself than she ever did when he was with her.

It has been nearly a year since Will died. It is a bitter reality that her memories of his final days are sharper and more vibrant than any memories of their happier times. But slowly, slowly, she is beginning to recall the better things. Slowly, she is coming out of the shadow of his death.

When Gisborne knocks on her door that night, she hesitates only a moment before letting him in, and to her piercing relief, he says he came to talk about Sherwood.

"You don't seem the type of woman to take to pity too well," he says, barely smiling with one side of his mouth, "But I took a risk and decided to come keep you company." He ducks his head briefly. "Sometimes it is not easy being alone."

"And you came to give yourself some company, too, I think," she answers, not too graciously – he is right; she does not like the idea of being pitied - but with enough good humor to assure him of his welcome. This is the third time they have met since that day outside the city. Each occasion was marked with half-finished sentences and tight silences, and then distraction: talk of work and journeys and weather, brief conversations held under the guise of an interchange of practical information. Nothing was ever said of her husband, nor did they speak of Marian.

And tonight, it seems, will be more of the same. They sit at her dining table with a roll of bread and a small bowl of olives between them. She asks how Much was getting along when Gisborne left England, which earns her a quirked eyebrow.

"Much? He...was about to be married, I believe."

She feels a genuine smile of delight – the first of its kind in many months – spread across her lips. Gisborne is nonplussed at her reaction, and she understands it to mean that he and Much did not take well to each other, and is not at all surprised. She then asks about Little John, and this time Gisborne speaks at length, with a great deal more affection in his voice. "You got on well," she surmises, and he nods, expression distant, and replies, "We did. He is a simple man, very brave, very open with his affections. I learned much from him."

"He treated me like a daughter. He was a great comfort to me when I first arrived in Nottingham. I am glad to know he does well."

They allow a pause, and Saffiya takes her time pouring them both a fresh cup of tea. She knows who is left to be asked about, and from the thoughtful look on Gisborne's face, he knows, too. He is the first to break the silence.

"My brother traveled with me to the port, but Robin would not go - I did not ask him to. I'm sure he understood my reasons for wanting to come back here. He...handles things differently than I do."

"He always kept his secrets well," she says in agreement. "He never opened up to any of us, though we shared such common trials."

"When he found out where I was going, he closed up even more." Gisborne shakes his head. "I did not even want to tell him. I never wanted to raise up that old ghost between us, though occasionally he tried. I do not blame him for it."

She is at a loss, still stumbling over the hows and whys of Robin and Gisborne's miraculous friendship. "How did you ever put such a thing to rest?"

He stares at the table, absently rubbing his thumb along the rim of his cup. "He was willing to forgive me. And for that, I was willing to lay down my life for him. I nearly did, too, as it turned out."

"The battle that took down Nottingham Castle."

"Yes. Many of us escaped that day by the skin of our teeth. But that is another story, for another time." He takes a long sip of his tea. She can tell by the shadowing of his features that he is getting lost in memories that would be better left forgotten.

"And what does Robin do with himself these days?" she asks lightly. "I imagine he would be restless with no sheriff to steal from."

Her effort at drawing Gisborne out of his darkening mood is rewarded with a small smile. "Robin is content. He has his lands. He has a piece of a family he'd thought lost to him. He has brought prosperity back to Nottingham. His mission, he would tell you, is never over, but...he can rest now. He can be at peace."

He raises his eyes to lock with hers. She feels something unspoken pass between them, an understanding that, for them, peace is yet far off. Her gaze softens. "Thank you for coming tonight. It was good of you."

"No, it was selfish," he says, another small smile ghosting across his lips. "I did not want to be alone with my thoughts."

"Neither did I," she assures him. "You were right about me. I _am _quite pitiful sometimes." He laughs, and she grins at him, gratified at having lightened his mood. He thanks her for the tea and, realizing that it has gotten late, says he will take his leave. She walks with him to the door. It is close to midnight, and shadows cover the alley. The sky is hazy with silver clouds.

"Sometime," Gisborne says, "I would like to hear more about your husband."

Another kindness. An open door, a waiting ear. "Thank you," she says. "Sometime, I will tell you."

He nods, holds out his hand. She grasps it tightly. "Goodnight."

"Goodnight," he murmurs, and walks away. Within moments, he has faded into the blue darkness. Later, when she blows out the candle and closes her eyes, she finds herself thinking, not of empty rooms and fever-wet skin, but of old friends, of laughter, and of a forest, green and beautiful.


	15. Chapter 15

**A/N: ** I apologize for the slow updates. My internet has been especially difficult recently.

A big "thank you" to everyone who has read and reviewed. Your feedback always makes me smile. :)

* * *

**Bound Home**

**Chapter 15  
**

_A lady of the palace these twenty years,_  
_She has lived here a thousand miles from her home-_  
_Yet ask her for this song and, with the first few words of it,_  
_See how she tries to hold back her tears._

- Zhang Hu, She Sings an Old Song

* * *

Guy finds Aalim at the docks, sitting in the sun, fanning himself with a palm branch.

"You could move into the shade," Guy says by way of greeting.

Aalim waves off the suggestion. "I am basking."

"You are sweating."

"And who are you to scold an old man? Sit down. Tell me how things go with you." Aalim peers at him closely, as if looking for some sign of change on Guy's face or figure. "I have not seen you in many days."

"Things go well, thank you."

"You spoke with the men who rescued you from your drunken night in the desert?"

Guy cannot hold back a slightly peevish sigh. Aalim never treats stupidity gently. "I did. They insisted that my gratitude was payment enough, and we left it at that."

"Very good. That was honorable of them."

"And you, my friend? How goes it with you?"

Aalim shrugs, and fans himself with a bit more enthusiasm. "The same, the same."

This time, Guy is the one peering closely, studying, searching. "Will you ever tell me what it is that brings you here each day?"

Aalim frowns. "I do not come each day. Hardly that."

Guy sees the reply for what it is – pure deflection - and waits for a real answer, but his friend says no more. He looks away, turning his attention to the docks where men and sails and cargo and gulls crowd together in a flurry of sound and sun. "Very well. I will not ask again."

"You seem in good spirits."

"I am always in good spirits," Guy replies flatly.

That earns hearty laughter from Aalim, and Guy feels himself smiling broadly. The ability to laugh at himself has only been learned recently, through many afternoons sat with Aalim, his faithful companion in the struggle to make sense of what life has given them. Whatever tragedy has marred Aalim's past (for he sits many times with such distance in his eyes, such unmistakable sadness that Guy knows it is not a happy memory which brings him to the water) he does not fail to let his quiet moods give way to brilliant smiles. He sits at ease with his regrets - never overwhelmed by them and never ignoring them - and Guy feels his companion has taught him to do the same.

"My friend, I am glad to see you this way," Aalim says, eyes softened but still crinkled with amusement. "What has brought about this change?"

"You have," Guy replies with great earnestness, but Aalim shakes his head.

"No, there is something else. Something you could not have gotten from lazy hours sitting with an old man. What has happened, hm?"

Guy squints up at the sky. White birds circle above the water, never straying too far from the fishing nets being hauled in to shore. He contemplates, and lands on an answer. "I got what I came here for." He looks back at Aalim, who has stopped fanning and is staring at him with blatant curiosity. "I needed to see someone again. I needed to lay something to rest – well, as much as I could."

"And that someone is now reconciled with you?"

Guy lowers his head and drags a hand through the warm, golden sand. "That someone is long gone," he replies.

No more questions are asked. The gulls cry out as they flap in the salty gusts. The sun heads for its highest point in the sky. The temperature rises, and Aalim takes up his palm branch and begins to lazily fan himself again.

* * *

To her great surprise, an Englishman comes to her home one morning and says he has brought a message from the Earl of Huntingdon. She looks the man over, but he is unknown to her.

"Loxley and I fought together with the King's army," he explains. "He sent me a note, asked me to deliver a letter to you."

"Thank you," she says, and takes hold of the vellum. The man nods and walks away, but she hardly notices his leaving. She remains standing in the doorway as she breaks open the seal.

The vellum is covered with Robin's handwriting.

1196 _March 21 _

_Greetings and the warmest affection to my friend and fellow soldier. I thank God that he has kept you well and that your letter arrived with all possible haste. Your news was met with the deepest sadness and sympathy, which I convey to you from John; from Much, Earl of Bonchurch; and from the entire village of Scarborough. Your letter was forwarded to L. Scarlet as you requested. W. S. has been mourned, not only among the friends who claimed personal connection, but by the countless families who benefited from his courage, charity and self-sacrifice. My friend, I cannot tell you what grief I feel in your behalf, but you know how well I empathize, as I have been in that hell – indeed, in the days that followed, you helped me through it with understanding and unforgettable kindness. I wish to be there with you now to offer some repayment, but as duties and obligations keep me here in Nottingham, this letter must suffice. _

_ Beyond this effort to wish you comfort and peace, it is necessary to inform you that we suffered another loss. Allan A'Dale, forever remembered for his bravery and yes, his loyalty, perished in the battle at Nottingham in the autumn of 1193, wherefore a reign of injustice and greed was ended. It pains me to think of how this news will be received, and it pains me further to add to your burden. He died fighting for England and her people – it is my sincerest hope that I, too, may meet such an honorable end whenever that fearsome time comes. _

_ I also wish to inform you of the most peculiar circumstances regarding myself and Sir G. of Gisbourne. Having not the benefit of time or ability to explain in detail, I must summarize these circumstances with all brevity: he repented of his crimes, left the service of Sheriff V. (deceased at the battle at Nottingham), and joined in our righteous efforts to bring justice back to our villages. As much as it seems impossible, we have a brother in common. G. is now by incredible means my relative of sorts, and has completely turned his back on his treasonous ways. I tell you this because I suspect you may chance upon him, as he left for Acre some months ago, and if it not be too great a trial to you, I wish you to greet him with as much openness and trust as you might any other ally of mine. _

_ I leave this letter now to tend to my estate (Loxley is rightfully in my possession once more, thanks be to God and his infinite mercies), and I wish that it go to you speedily, that my words may in some small way bring comfort to my missed and greatly saddened friend. _

_ I pray for you with constancy. My home is always yours should you be in need of it. If it be God's will, we shall meet again some day. _

_ R. of Loxley_

A breeze blows through her doorway; the vellum flutters in her hands. She notices that her palms and the back of her neck are slick with sweat. She has been standing too long in the sun. The air is hot and dried out by summer's approach, and she realizes a sudden and desperate thirst.

Back inside the cool shade of her home, she gulps down a bowl of water and wipes the sweat from her hands and neck. Robin's letter lies furled on her table. She sits and stares at it, head resting in one palm, the other knotted in the cotton of her tunic. She and Robin had never been close – much of his time had been taken up with private concerns, with Marian, and much of _her _time had been taken up with Will - but now she misses him greatly. He always had a way about him that could make people feel safe, confident, and often all it took was a wink and a grin. In a strange way, she is homesick for England. She misses Sherwood forest. She misses hearing Much's sharp, joyful laughter. She misses Little John's brogue and the warmth in his eyes.

She misses Allan.

Most of all, she misses Will.

She reaches out a finger to trace the broken wax seal. Closes her eyes. And then the ache swells, and she clutches the letter fiercely to her breast, as though the vellum and the ink could bring her closer to them all.


	16. Chapter 16

**A/N: **Well, after a range of crazy problems I've had this past month or so (including computer issues), everything seems to be somewhat settling in real life and I now finally have a chance to update this story. My sincere apologies for the wait.

Thank you to a few readers who offered some concrit regarding a phrase in the last chapter. It's been fixed in a way that I think retains the original feeling and information I wanted to convey, without altering it too much stylistically. I edited that chapter with the full intention of posting the next chapter right away...but then my internet (and everything else) went straight down the toilet for a bit. Plus, this chapter needed some heavy editing itself, further delaying an update. _  
_

I have added quite a bit to Djaq's part in this chapter. Although I wrote at length about Guy's feelings regarding Marian, I felt that the early draft of this story didn't fully explore _Djaq's _feelings on the matter. I'm hoping that this revised version will go some ways toward resolving that.

Constructive criticism is always welcome, especially since it's been so long since I've had the time to look at this story again.

To all who are reading and who take the time to leave feedback: Thank you!

* * *

**Bound Home**

**Chapter 16  
**

_After rain the empty mountain  
Stands autumnal in the evening,  
Moonlight in its groves of pine,  
Stones of crystal in its brooks.  
Bamboos whisper of washer-girls bound home,  
Lotus-leaves yield before a fisher-boat -  
And what does it matter that springtime has gone,  
While you are here, O Prince of Friends? _

-Wang Wei, An Autumn Evening in the Mountains

* * *

He does not feel any uncertainty in going to her. If nothing else, they have been remarkably honest with one another, and now they are approaching something like friendship. It soothes him, being in her presence, because of that honesty – there is nothing to hide. She resented him a little at first, he knows, because she is an independent person and does not like to be thought of as needing companionship. He understands that part of her - it used to be a part of him. But he learned long ago to let go of such pretenses. He is weak, and in coming to know that weakness, he gained the strength to change. He cannot be afraid of truth anymore.

He thinks perhaps the reason he came back to this city was to conquer that fear once and for all.

And now, beyond that feat, he is finding contentment in showing what kindness he can to Saffiya. Since arriving in Acre, he has missed being useful. With Robin and Archer, he did things that had real impact, and lasting consequences. Now, he idles away his time acquainting himself with the city and teaching a young noble how to conjugate verbs in French. It is a vast difference, but befriending Saffiya has filled some of the space left empty by lack of industry.

Thinking on his life now versus the life he led in England brings a wry smile to his face, and that smile is still on his lips when Saffiya answers the door. She cocks an eyebrow at him, curious at his good mood, maybe still annoyed that he thinks she needs the company. "I have a patient." And then she closes the door.

Yes, Guy thinks as he is jostled by the crowd of passersby - still annoyed.

But instead of letting himself boil into indignation at being so quickly dismissed, as he perhaps would have once done, he lingers at the market stalls near her door and waits patiently. He knows her frank manner now, her sharp edges and pointed words, and cannot take offense at them. Where another man might get his back up, he knows her well enough now to translate her moods and ways. He waits because he is confident she will welcome him later.

She never truly rebuffs his efforts to be a friend to her. She has never been open with him again like she was that day at the grave site, but she is always happy to talk about their mutual friends back in Nottingham, and she listens with rapt attention when he tells her about his escapades with Hood's men. "Yes," she will often say after he describes some astonishing act of bravery (or, in his personal opinion, _lunacy)_ committed by Robin - "Yes, that sounds like him."

He has come to see that she is a thinking woman, a woman of method and practicality, and Guy believes she must have suffered Robin's impetuousness about as well as he himself did. He often asks her what role she played in some of Robin's more memorable schemes. Sometimes she tells him, relating the story with a fantastic gleam in her eye. Other times she just looks away with an arched brow and acquits herself of any involvement. "Robin could be too brash for his own good," she would say, and he would nod in perfect agreement.

And even though she usually sighs at first sight of him at her door, and is reluctant to let him in – even though she watches him from the corner of her eye, as if wary that he will, at any moment, revert back to the enemy she once knew - she always bids him farewell with a smile on her lips and warmth in her eyes. And so he keeps coming back. He knows she needs someone who will understand her, who has traveled the same roads and slept under the same trees and fought the same battles.

And he has no trouble admitting he needs that, too.

He wonders about going back to England now that he has faced his past here. He is sure Robin would find him some manner of work – or perhaps he would join his brother in whatever adventures the boy is getting himself into. But he cannot leave just yet, not while Saffiya's eyes are still shadowed and her smiles never really brighten her face. He feels he owes something to her. He owes something to Robin, too, and Robin - his comrade-in-arms, the man who has been a guide for Guy as he stumbled back up the rocky path to his boyhood goodness - would probably want him to stay and watch over his old friend. It would be the noble thing to do, and Guy remembers a time when noble was all he ever wanted to be.

He waits an hour, drifting through the market, greeting a few men who recognize him for his connection to the young prince or Aalim. And then he goes back to her door. He Knocks. And while he is expecting her to scowl and resist for at least a moment, as is her way, this time when she opens the door she does not hesitate to let him in.

* * *

She is not a weak woman. She has lost a mother to illness, a father and brother to war. She has been kidnapped, shackled, and sent halfway across the world to slave for foreign men. She has lived as an outlaw, with only the trees and the sky to shelter her. She has survived imprisonment and more brushes with death than she can count.

She has survived the loss of her dearest friend, the other half of her heart and mind.

But she is strong. She has forged on through all the dark days. She stands tall, and while she at times cannot help but look behind at all she has lost, she has never stumbled. For the sake of her father's name and of Will's, she has never let herself be weak.

But tonight, a certain kind of frailty has set in. The shadows in her room are deep. The night is only just approaching, but already it seems it will be long and cold. When Gisborne knocks again at her door, she cannot muster the effort needed to keep him on guard - she lets the door swing wide and lets him in with neither wariness nor pleasure, nor any greeting at all.

She is filled with gratitude when he shows himself to be aware of her fragile state. He smiles at first, and then looks her over for a second or two before putting the lightest touch of his fingers to her shoulder and guiding her to the table.

"Sit," he says. "You've had a tiring day?"

She makes a noncommittal noise. There has been a long succession of tiring days ever since Will's death - this evening hardly seems different. But he continues to search her out, asking questions until she sighs into her cup of tea and admits that yes, today has been especially difficult. He doesn't pretend to wonder about her patients or her work in an awkward effort to skirt around what he must know is the true cause of her low spirits. He just looks at her while she gazes at nothing, no doubt taking measure of her dull eyes and of her careless hands. (She spilled tea when she filled his cup, and gave the table only a weak swipe with her sleeve. She felt his stare, and avoided it.)

They drink and listen to the fading noise of the streets. The stalls are closing. People are returning to their homes. Just as they finish their first round of tea, the call for _maghrib_ echoes faintly beyond her door. Gisborne leans over his empty cup, stretching over the small table until his elbows rest close to hers. She slowly lifts her eyes to his. He smiles with one side of his mouth, and asks her, "When did you realize you were in love with Will Scarlet?"

She blinks in stupefaction. His smile widens.

And when she finds her lips turning up as well, she begins to tell her story.

He laughs and frowns and shakes his head at all the right times. He leads her with questions that come from real curiosity, and not just an obvious desire to distract her or lift her mood, and pulls memories from her that she'd thought long forgotten. She ends her telling where she feels she ought to: at her and her husband's victory in this city, bidding farewell to their friends and looking forward to a new life together. She can still remember that day in perfect detail: the warmth of the sun on her face as she waved goodbye; the jaunty laugh Allan gave that echoed across the vaulted ceiling; and Will's arm around her shoulders - his eyes, dark and warm; and his smile, easy and free and brighter than the new day.

She sighs, and lifts her gaze to Gisborne's.

"Amazing," he says. His eyes are alight with something like fascination. She presses her hands to her cheeks and feels the curves of her smile.

"He was," she replies, and then laughs. "Telling you all this - I feel as if I have fallen in love with him all over again."

He laughs with her, but whatever joy those old memories bestowed proves to be temporary. She may have only told Gisborne of triumph and happiness, but the trail leading to more painful memories is well-worn and far too easy to follow. When her laughter dies and she bows her head to hide her trembling mouth, he reaches out and grips her hand tightly. He doesn't say another word until her last tear has fallen, until she wipes at her eyes with a sleeve that smells like black tea and gives him a weak smile.

"I don't know that I have ever loved like that," he says.

She stares, and then looks away, feeling a sudden uneasiness. She is reminded of what _his _story is, and her memory of that day in Acre, saying goodbye to her friends, fades to another memory - one of scorching heat and terror.

His touch loses some of its warmth as her gratitude for his presence fades into distinct aversion. She barely resists the urge to pull back her hand, but the twitch of her wrist gives her away.

"It's alright," he says, releasing her. He leans back. "We both know what I am - what I've done. I'm sorry..."

The memory of Marian lying in the sand, curled into herself, white dress stained brightly with her blood, stirs up an old, familiar horror. It settles in her stomach like a cold stone. Her voice yet hoarse from shed tears, she says, "The things you told me about her - I cannot understand. I _cannot_." Despite her best efforts, revulsion creeps up her spine and into her voice. She jerks her chin in his direction. "These hands of yours were once bathed in her blood. Yet you can sit there so quietly..."

His stare is steady and unblinking. She looks away and says again, "I do not understand."

"You aren't meant to," he replies. "My passion - the violence - there was no reason to it."

The room is silent but for their breathing. He kneads his brow where a deep frown has set in. The weak yellow light of her oil lamps turns his blue eyes nearly black.

"I tried to do what was right," he eventually continues. "I tried to love, to give her things that would make her happy. But...I didn't know what I was doing. The bards would have you believe that love is the most natural thing in the world, but for some people, that... that simply isn't true." He shakes his head, and lets out a low, hollow laugh. "She tried to change me - she was convinced there was something in me worth fighting for. But she didn't fight hard enough. There was too much hate in me. Too much of Vasey's poisonous philosophies. I was such a willing pupil - and for all the wrong lessons."

She feels a spark of anger that cuts through her deep weariness and stiffens her bones. "Why?" she asks. "Why would you listen to a man like that? A man who used you, who used people like they were nothing and took and stole and cheated and killed - What could have possibly convinced you to throw your lot in with such a black-hearted creature?"

He licks his lips and drags his teeth over his bottom lip, biting and scraping at the tender flesh as he thinks. "I had nothing else," he answers after a heavy pause. He lifts his gaze to hers. "I had no family, no land, and hardly any money. My father's name had been dragged through the mud - his property stolen. He died in disgrace. I was...I was hot with vengeance. I wanted to make the ones responsible for it all pay. I wanted to grind my boot heel on their necks and show them that I was still surviving despite everything that had been done to me, that I could take back the honor that had been lost. I swore to myself that I would lift the Gisborne name. More than that, I wanted to be feared. No one would ever dare cross a Gisborne again. I was to make sure of that."

"Everyone was your enemy, then. Even the innocent. Even the people you and the sheriff were supposed to protect."

His mouth twists into a bitter smirk, and he says, "Oh, yes. Everyone. If they disobeyed - if they cheated me in even the smallest way -" He plants his fist on the table. "Betrayal was the ultimate sin to me, and Marian betrayed me again, and again, and again. For every step we took toward a better understanding of each other, we seemed to take three steps back. She lied - I lied. She manipulated me - I...terrorized her. We never...I never truly loved her. I never loved her more than I loved myself. I didn't know how."

He gazes off into nothing, and she sits in silence, watching him. A minute passes, and she sees his shoulders start to relax and his hand loosen from its tight fist. Another minute slides past them. He lets out a sigh and runs a hand through his hair. He looks at her. "You haven't thrown me out yet."

She takes him in with a slow study: shadowed eyes, rimmed red with some restrained emotion. Cheeks hollow, lips pressed thin, arms loose. His face is easy to read - he is consumed with self-disgust, in the weary, numbed manner of those who have been living with guilt for many years.

"No," she says, and drags in a deep breath and reaches for the copper pot. "We haven't finished the tea."

She feels his stare as she pours them both another cup. She takes a sip - the tea has turned lukewarm, the dregs are especially bitter - and waits for Gisborne to do the same.

"I am sorry," she adds once he moves to take his cup. "Sorry for the things you have had to endure and for the things you have done. Do you remember? I told you that day we went to the graves. I told you that only Allah can be our judge."

She glances up and sees Gisborne watching her through shuttered eyes. "I remember," he murmurs.

She nods. "He is a merciful judge."

Silence again falls between them. She feels the cold weight in her stomach fade. Gisborne has angled himself away from her, his face hidden behind a curtain of black hair. She hears the slow breath he draws in, and moves her head so as to meet his eyes when he starts to turn back toward her. "That you have now found your way," she says, "it is a gift. And I believe you are using it wisely."

He half-smiles, and she surprises herself with how familiar she has already become with this expression. She can predict precisely how his lips will pull only to one side - the left - because there is always a trace of sadness in it; how his lips will part just slightly, and he will glance down, as if always unsure if his brief happinesses are allowed.

"Thank you," he says quietly. "Though I wish I could dismiss my past as easily as your god does."

"He is one god. He is our maker. I think you have confused your lack of belief in him with your lack of faith in yourself."

He leans forward, bringing himself out of the shadows and into the glow of the oil lamp that sits on the table between them. His gaze is focused completely on her, so intense, so expressive, that she nearly has to look away. "I have never been spoken to in such a manner," he says, forming the words with great deliberateness and solemnity, so that she feels that she has somehow done something remarkable, something almost sacred.

"It is only the truth," she answers in a small voice, hushed by the raw emotion in his eyes. "And do not think that I know nothing of regret. I have wondered..." She bows her head. The words must be forced, but they are words she has been desperate to speak. "Many foreigners fall sick here. Diseases that my people can withstand often prove fatal to the white men, the soldiers and the pilgrims. If I had not asked Will to stay-"

"Don't."

She falls silent. He shakes his head. "Do not blame yourself. That way leads to madness."

He holds her gaze for only a moment more, and then looks away, shifting in his seat. She understands. He _is _to blame for all of his losses. And from what she can tell based on that night he was laid out on her table, his flesh as cold as the winter moon, he knows very well what that madness is.

She nods to acknowledge him, but now, having already visited painful memories, she struggles with the hollow burn of grief that has waxed and waned, but has never left.

Gisborne waits, so quiet that she could almost forget his presence.

She takes in a deep, full breath, and when she releases it, she raises her gaze to Gisborne's and says, "I am very tired."

He nods. His eyes are now clear, calm. "I know."

The lamp burns low. The floor cushions are no longer plush, and her body is aching.

"I will leave, if that is what you wish."

He is studying her again, no doubt noticing the heaviness of her lids, the limp angle of her shoulders. She nods. When he stands and moves past her, she reaches up and tangles her fingers with his. "Thank you."

He replies by covering her hand with both of his, lingering long enough for her to feel the warmth of his skin. And then he steps away, and she lets her arm fall back to her lap, and hears the sound of the door being opened and closed.

Outside, the _muadhan _cries out for the evening _salat_. His voice barely carries into her room, but she knows the words by heart: _Rise up for prayer. Rise up for salvation._ _God is great. _

_There is no god except the one god._

She moves her tired bones to shift onto her knees, and lowers her head to the floor.


	17. Chapter 17

__**A/N: **Well, well, well. If it isn't _me_. Come back after a long absence, daring to post another chapter - tsk, tsk. Massive apologies to everyone for the extreme delay in updates, but this chapter really resisted being fixed, and I had a lot going on in Darth Real Life that kept me away from the computer. Please, if anyone has some critiques about this chapter, let me know. I am forever dissatisfied with my work, always finding things to edit and alter, so concrit that comes from more objective sources is always appreciated and taken into serious consideration. I won't say I'm content with this chapter, but I fleshed it out quite a bit, as I felt it was previously glossing over some important moments, so it _is _improved.

Thank you to everyone who remains interested in this story and to everyone who reviews. You are all greatly appreciated.

* * *

**Bound Home**

**Chapter 17**

_You have left me behind, old friend, at the Yellow Crane Terrace,  
On your way to visit Yangzhou in the misty month of flowers;  
Your sail, a single shadow, becomes one with the blue sky,  
Till now I see only the river, on its way to heaven._

- Li Bai, A Farewell to Meng Haoran on His Way to Yangzhou

* * *

Aalim is not at all surprised by Guy's announcement.

"I knew this was coming," he says with a shrug. "Of course, I will be sad to see you go. But a man should not be so long away from his home."

"How did you know?" Guy asks, chagrined at how, time and again, Aalim proves to him how easily he is read.

His friend waves one hand in the air in a vague gesture. "Oh, there is a way about you now. You are better than you were when I first met you. More alive. Being here has served its purpose?" Guy nods. "So it is," Aalim continues. "I could see you were getting restless."

Guy studies him as they sit once again in the shade by the docks. Another pot of tea steams between them. The birds still circle and cry. Aalim still stares at the sea as if he is waiting for something to emerge from its depths. "I hate to leave you, my friend."

Aalim lets out a silent, humorless laugh. "I hate to see you go. But we all travel different paths."

"Our paths may cross again."

"Oh? What would bring you back so far as Acre? Is one miserable journey over the seas not enough?"

"But I have found a very good friend on this particular journey." _Two, actually_, Guy silently corrects, thinking of a strong, lonely woman, and the feel of her hand in his. "That makes it all worthwhile."

He can tell Aalim is not really convinced. Despite his apparent complacency, Guy knows that the news of his departure has saddened his friend. The man remains a mystery - all ease and contentment, casting a beam of light to put the person he really is in deep shadow. Guy makes a silent promise to himself that, if ever he is able, he will indeed make this journey again, if only to give Aalim another day of company. Even if he never explains the mystery of his constant watchfulness at the docks, Guy thinks it would be worth the discomforts and dangers to travel here once more, to sit again under this tree and drink from this same pot and share another unbearably hot afternoon with his friend.

"When do you go?"

He leaves his meditations with a sigh. "I'm still not sure."

Aalim slurps his drink noisily, and then frowns at the tea pot. Guy quirks a smile, and then turns his gaze to the sea. "I suppose I should have at least brought some wine."

The sun beats down brightly on the water, throwing golden sparks into his eyes. His smile widens when he looks back over at his friend. Aalim is nearly doubled over, laughing heartily in agreement.

* * *

August brings her many new patients, most of them sick from the heat. She is familiar with this season's harsh ways. The treatments are simple and the outcomes are often good. She loses herself in her work and finds herself now content, settled into a comfortable routine. At times, the absence of her husband strikes her with its incredible _wrongness –_ but she is dreaming about him less and less, and he occupies her thoughts now only in the quiet moments at the edges of her days, before sleep and just after waking, when her bed seems to echo with its emptiness.

"It is good to see you smile," Gisborne says to her one evening. "I know how hard a fight it can be to do even so simple a thing."

She reaches for his hand and gives it a brief squeeze. She is only easy with touching him when he shows himself to be of such quality, and though this is one of those times - though his words now fill her with warmth - his past still pales the space between them, and she is not able to let her hand linger in his.

"Thank you," she says, trying to put more gratitude in her voice than she is able to express by her touch. "Lately I have been well, but I'm afraid this night would have been more difficult had you not come. My thoughts have been dark today."

He responds with a shake of his head, murmuring, "You've been a friend to me here. I could not but return your charity."

She busies herself with the usual hospitality - arranging the floor cushions, lighting an extra lamp. But she notices that, instead of taking a seat, he has not moved from his position just inside the doorway. His posture is stiff. She looks at him with one eyebrow raised in question.

"However," he adds, "I have come to tell you that...my time in Acre is over. I leave for England next week."

At first she does not fully understand. Leave the city? How? To go where? And then she remembers that her home is not his, and his days in Acre were numbered from the start. He came with a purpose, and it appears to now be completed.

"Oh?" she says.

He nods. His eyes are steady and bright, lined with concern. His whole attention is focused on her, and it produces a heady sensation that she has grown familiar with but has never quite grown accustomed to. Gisborne's intensity and openness still has the power at times to throw her. His stare every once in a while can make her feel as though she is the center of the universe, and he is stopping time itself to study her. Will used to look at her in that way. And though she knows that Gisborne is just naturally such a man, and that his interest in her has never plumbed the depths of her husband's, it is still a consuming feeling, and it fires her from head to foot.

She loses herself for a moment in that strange pull, and then draws back, blinking, and gestures at the table. "Sit. Tell me more."

The night deepens. The lamps slowly burn through their oil. Gisborne talks of his yearning to return home, of his being at peace with the past. As he explains, she slowly begins to understand the full implications of his going, and panic twinges in her chest. Her one friend will be gone. Her days, filled as they are with work, are easy enough to get through, but what of nights like this, when the loneliness is a cold, deep well, and Gisborne is not there to draw her out of it? How did she survive after Will's passing and before this man's friendship? Those days are lost to her. Memories of that time are scarce and obscure.

She notices his careful, searching gaze. He was surely afraid this news would upset her, and now he worries.

She takes a breath, and then once more takes his hand. This time, she does not let herself shrink away. "I am happy for you, truly. And I wish you a safe journey."

He seems to relax, and his hand turns over to grasp hers. His eyes brighten. "You could come with me. Robin, John...everyone wants to see you again, I'm sure. They spoke of you with such fondness-"

"No," she says, breathing out a laugh and shaking her head, trying to move past a sudden burst of terror that tore through her at the thought of leaving. Memories of England start to whisper at the edges of her mind. The desire to go back burns, but it is a distant fire. "I have too much to keep me here. I have a _home _here." Her eyes wander the room and walls. "A home I made with my husband. I cannot leave it so easily."

She stares at Gisborne's long fingers as they gently wrap around her wrist. That weak desire to return with him seems to be given strength through his touch, and she fears it is a false strength. She pulls away. She shakes her head. The quiet of her rooms settles down around her and she again feels set in her right place, nested, secure. England fades from her mind's eye.

He is frowning when she looks back up. "I just want to make sure you'll be alright," he says. His voice is tender, and his eyes caring. He looks truly pained at the thought of leaving her, and she is so moved by his constant and sincere concern that she nearly leans forward to touch his cheek. The urge smolders in her breast. She tightens her hands in her lap.

There is no good answer to give him now. She will never be _alright, _not entirely, not without Will. And she knows that the truth will only further burden him with guilt at leaving her side. So she replies, "And you?", turning the attention away from herself and all the never-agains that Will's passing brought her.

Guy smiles just slightly. "I will be fine. I have a brother who will not hesitate to knock my senses back into me if ever I'm _not _fine. Well, that goes for Little John, too. And Robin. Come to think of it, perhaps going back to England is not the greatest idea after all..."

She laughs with him, knowing he needs to hear it, needs to see her happy and smiling so that he can leave with an easy conscience. She promises to see him off at the port and bids him a mildly cheerful goodnight, but when he is gone and the door is closed, the quiet that was only moments ago reassuring becomes unsettling. She wonders why the idea of leaving terrified her so much. She looks at the emptiness of her room – Will's things are gone, finally given up or packed away - and knows that this place stopped feeling like their home the day that he died. Clinging to a patch of sand and a small house seems somewhat foolish.

There was once a presence about this house, a weight, as if all of the seconds and minutes and days spent with her husband were stored in the air when spent, to be felt and breathed in and breathed out and surrounded by. This home once seemed packed from the threshold to the roof with memories.

She still senses them there, but what was once a heavy canopy seems to have turned into a veil. She sees beyond it now. The weight and warmth has faded to almost nothing.

She goes to the port as she promised and smiles when Gisborne kisses her hand in farewell. She watches the ship sail west, and feels a pang of envy. He is moving on. She questions why she is not doing the same.


	18. Chapter 18

**A/N: **This was another important chapter that required some particular attention - hence the delay. For all who may be wondering, rest assured that this story is already completed, and will be posted in its entirety. I'll try my best to be a bit more prompt with the updates._  
_

Thank you to all who are reading and reviewing.

* * *

**Bound Home**

**Chapter 18  
**

_A lonely swan from the sea flies,  
To alight on puddles it does not deign.  
Nesting in the poplar of pearls  
It spies and questions green birds twain:  
"Don't you fear the threat of slings,  
Perched on top of branches so high?  
Nice clothes invite pointing fingers,  
High climbers god's good will defy.  
Bird-hunters will crave me in vain,  
For I roam the limitless sky." _

_ -_Zhang Jiuling, Thoughts I

* * *

The last time he left Acre, he was living in a nightmare. This time, things are much different.

_Strange_, he muses, gazing down at the white waves that surround the ship like lace trim. Just a few months ago, he was still caught in Marian's broken embrace. The world was drenched in his memories of her – she was so fixed in his mind in all the years after her death that he had unwittingly begun to live his life _around _her instead of without her. And, like a beast tied to a mill, he walked through life tied to her, always circling around to where he started only to circle around yet again.

He _thought_ he'd moved on a long time ago. Only now does he realize what it is to be free of her ghost, now that he can look back and see the difference between suffering for her and simply missing her.

His regret will always linger. His guilt will always drive him toward atonement. But he is no longer looking at his life through the veil of her blood. He no longer tortures himself with what-ifs. He has made his peace.

He means to find some happiness now, if such a thing is still possible.

He thinks about Aalim, usually in the afternoons when the temperature of the air reminds him of all their days sitting at the port. When he stands on the deck, warmed by the sea's boundless sunlight, he looks at the eastern horizon and wonders if perhaps his line of sight, traveling across the miles of empty ocean that now separate him from Acre, is meeting directly with his friend's. He wonders if Aalim still stares at the water with his dark, searching eyes. In his heart, he knows it is so.

Saffiya is also a constant presence in his thoughts. He has long days on the sea to do nothing but sit and think about her, to ask himself if he was right to leave her so soon, to hope that she finds some happiness of her own. He even prayed for her once in an odd moment when the sunlight was blinding and the waves calm, and he felt moved by some ancient, buried yearning to connect with the skies and whomever might lie beyond. He prayed with his eyes open and his face set to the wide blue heavens, and afterward felt a certainty - a small voice sounding from the deepest parts of his soul - that his prayer had been heard.

One week before the ship's estimated arrival at England, he sits at a cramped writing desk and smooths out a piece of vellum. It had cost him a fair amount - everything becomes more valuable on a seagoing vessel - but it was worth the price. He feels a small smile pull at his mouth as he dips his stylus into the ink and scratches out an opening address.

I, a_ well-traveled and weary servant, give greetings of the warmest affection to my trusted friend Saffiya. _

_May you receive this letter in peace.  
_

* * *

One year, six months, five days - measured, not with a calendar, but by the prayers she has offered with tears and with trembling, with stillness and with silence. The final days of that summer with Will are gone – a haze of heat and darkness. The following autumn and winter and this past summer were a stretch of nothing, an exercise in getting by, forgotten seasons pinpricked by occasional brushes with the _here _and _now_.

And now autumn has left again. She sits in her house with her clothes still full of sand from a visit to Will's grave. She knows what this winter will bring. She knows these rooms will not change, and the shadows will turn as they always have while, once more, winter passes into spring, and spring into summer, and summer into another bottomless, dying autumn.

She is a singularity here. Family is everything to her people, but her family is mostly gone, and what is left of it can bear the title only by reason of blood, and not affection - relatives who cannot relate, and who stopped wanting to when she came to them with an English husband. The only thing that has kept her in Acre has been the deep belief that being close to Will's grave means being close to _him. _

She knows better now.

Gisborne's letter is nearly worn through, so often has she handled it. Judging by the date on the letter, he has been back home for at least three months. She sits with the shutters open and the morning air blowing in. Sunlight pools around her. She watches the people - so many, all unknown to her - travel past her house, going about the business of their lives. Her finger rests on Gisborne's letter, and taps against it in a broken rhythm.

_My thoughts are upon you with the greatest constancy. I owe you a debt of gratitude such as can never be repaid. It is my strongest desire that you be well and satisfied with what each day now brings you._

Gisborne must have known what he was about in coming to make peace with death, and then leaving that death behind. Just like Marian, Will Scarlet is no longer here. His scent has vanished from their rooms. His absence is no longer an aberration, and she no longer carries the feeling that, at any moment, he will walk through the door or call her name from the upper rooms.

The sands have swallowed him up and covered him over, as they did her father and brother before him.

_Will you not reconsider returning to England? If only for a visit, a lengthy one so as to make the journey worthwhile. I can testify with real accuracy that the months you spend at sea - the aches and discomforts - will vanish as soon as you set foot on England's shores. _

_You must know how your friends here would rejoice at once more seeing your face._

She is ready to leave this place. It took a great deal of time to acknowledge it, but she knows now that her home is back in Sherwood forest, because her home is wherever her husband is - and he is no longer here. Sherwood is where his imprint will always be strongest. There, it is in the villages and forests, along the rivers and lanes that she can trace the genealogy of his character. It is there underneath Sherwood's heavy branches that she can feel the weight of their shared history. On the sun-dappled forest floor, despite the thick cover of dead leaves which have no doubt erased all their worn paths, she can walk in her husband's footsteps. She can laugh with his friends. She can live once more with the people who became her cause, with the men who became her brothers.

She gently folds Gisborne's letter, and sets off to say her goodbyes.


	19. Chapter 19

**A/N: **My internet connection has been absolutely haywire lately, so my apologies for another late update. This chapter has been fleshed out quite a bit more, and introduces a slightly different feel and direction than the previous version. Let me know what you think, as I'm still a bit undecided about it.

Thank you to everyone who has reviewed, and to all who are still reading.

* * *

** Bound Home**

**Chapter 19 **

_Now that the sun has set beyond the western range,  
Valley after valley is shadowy and dim...  
And now through pine-trees come the moon and the chill of evening,  
And my ears feel pure with the sound of wind and water  
Nearly all the woodsmen have reached home,  
Birds have settled on their perches in the quiet mist...  
And still - because you promised - I am waiting for you, waiting,  
Playing lute under a wayside vine._

-Meng Haorang, At the Mountain-Lodge of the Buddhist Priest Ye Waiting in Vain for My Friend Ding

* * *

The child is no different from any other - small, fat, pink-cheeked, and bald. But Much and his Lady Eve coo over him as if he is the most beautiful and perfect babe to have ever graced the earth, and Robin and Little John are likewise charmed, talking to the child as if it could understand them. He supposes this was inevitable. Children generally follow marriage. But Guy thought Much would have gotten this part of it out of the way by the time he returned from Acre – that the wonderment and celebrating would be over, and all that would be left for him to do would be to smile and say a nice word about how healthy the child looks.

But William of Bonchurch was born one month after Guy arrived back on English soil, and everyone within riding distance of Bonchurch has been invited to come with their congratulations, himself included. He tried to weather the storm at Loxley, but John flatly refused to let him, saying something about being _polite _and _proper,_ and giving the child and its parents what was their due. His words were true enough, but the civilities that are commonly exchanged among nobility, the etiquette and rituals that were once appealing, now sit on him like a too-large doublet. They now only call to mind the delusions of honor and standing he'd had under Vasey's guidance - make him shiver with humiliation at the grand manner in which he'd deceived himself into thinking he was living up to his knighthood, when he'd really been shaming it.

A certain other kind of oddness strikes him, too - the oddity of attending such a ceremony with men who'd once been forced to live as outcasts, when eating squirrel stew (one of Much's specialties) and drinking pilfered wine was considered a feast; when they lived not much better than the forest creatures around them. He sees Sherwood's mud still on John's boots; thorns and twigs still lurking beneath the delicate embroidery of Robin's cloak. He wonders if the refinements of civilized life will ever feel real to them all again. He wonders if the others ever go to sleep wishing to be back under the stars rather than a roof and heavy blankets. He knows he does, at times. Five years has not been enough time to forget the man Sherwood forest made him into.

But regardless of those years spent as outlaws, Much is now lord of his own estate and is celebrating the birth of an heir, and Guy has obeyed the request for his presence. He stands stuffed within a crowded hall, listening to drunk peasants chattering about which parent the child favors more and which girl in the village might one day be his bride. He is happy for Much and Eve. The child does look remarkably hale_. _But he cannot help but feel as though everyone's eyes are on him, remembering old grievances, whispering suspicions... It is the guilt that presses on him especially when he is surrounded by Loxley's folk. His longing for the shade and safety of Sherwood forest spikes within him - it is getting breathtakingly hot in the hall, and he slips through the crush of people toward the door, fighting the urge to knock past them and push them out of his way. It is, perhaps, what they would still be expecting him to do. He walks carefully and murmurs his apologies with a small smile.

Outside, the sun is just starting to descend. The bright morning is sinking into an overcast afternoon. Now clear of the crowd, he feels some ease returning to him, and his discomfort, so stifling just moments ago, fades. He walks away from the cheerful noise of the house, heading for a low hill that overlooks a stream Archer and Much tried to fish in when Much was first granted the property. If he recalls correctly, the attempt was unsuccessful, as the men caught more insect bites than anything else.

The memory works to settle him further. He looks back at the house, dissatisfied at his departure, but unable to regret it. There will always be time for merrymaking. He can give his good wishes to Much another day.

He turns away to walk along a row of saplings, touching each one's tender leaves as he passes by. He wonders what sort of gift he ought to procure to celebrate the birth, and his lips turn up when he remembers Much's fondness for a certain cheese they once stole from a particularly disagreeable nobleman.

Fond memories. He is still at times surprised at how many he has, most of them having been created after his departure from Vasey's service. He would never have guessed that such contentment would be his, not after the hell he put himself through. A part of him will perhaps always feel that such contentment is undeserved - his unease around the villagers is proof enough of that. And a part of him aches for his sister, at all the happiness she threw away – but that is another regret that will always remain with him, and, as he often does, he turns his thoughts away from her and his past and tries to think on better things.

He is contemplating Much's suitability as a father when he glimpses a figure moving toward him, coming from the south – another well-wisher, in all likelihood, arriving late. But as the figure comes closer and takes on a more definite shape, Guy realizes this is not just another villager.

When Saffiya catches sight of him, she smiles more brilliantly than he has ever seen before, and the last of his worries vanish into nothing.

* * *

The lush fields surrounding Robin's estate are bright green and glistening with dew, and the air is thick with cool winds and growing, blossoming things. March is bursting into April. Nottingham is alive with spring.

"Can we still call you Djaq?" Much asks, bouncing his son nervously in his arms. "I mean, it's not really your name, and I imagine you've been going by your _real _name in Acre, so I would understand if you didn't want to be called Djaq. It's just what we've always called you, though, so-"

"Much, you're going to make him sick with all that jostling," Robin interrupts, and he holds his arms out as if to take the child.

The new father twists slightly away. "No," he says, lifting his chin. "William prefers to be held by me."

"Well, at least try not to toss him over your shoulder. What are you so anxious about, anyway?"

"Nothing. Nothing at all." Much's gaze sweeps over her and Robin, and his lips thin into a tight line. "If she finds out, I am _dead._"

"Oh, Much, what have you done?" Robin laughs.

"It wasn't my fault, not really!"

Saffiya listens with half an ear as the story unfolds – something about a misplaced silver rattle – and tries to name the feeling now suffusing her with warmth. She cannot pin it to one word, but she idly imagines it is how pigeons feel upon reaching their nest after a long flight abroad. Her friends are much as they ever were, changed only in that they are happier, reaping the rewards of their sacrifices. Such justice has been rare in her life, and is all the more dear for it. Her welcome was everything she could have hoped for. Robin insisted she stay at his home - "As long as you like. I mean it!" - and Much had actually shed tears over her return. She suspects Little John was nearly in the same condition, but he turned away before she could get a good look at him.

They talked of Will. John took her hand. Much cried some more. And Robin said again, _Please. Please stay with u_s.

"So what will it be?" Much asks, drawing her out of her thoughts. Robin is now holding William, and looking quite pleased with himself. "Djaq or Saffiya? Either is perfectly good, you know."

"Call me what you wish," she answers, even though her real name on the lips of Robin's men still sounds strange. She is too happy to care.

"Djaq it is!" Much announces. "Well, for myself anyway. I'd have felt terribly awkward calling you anything else."

"Well, now all that's left to do," Robin says brightly to the baby, "is to go say hello to your mum. I wonder where she might be right now."

"Robin..." There is a touch of real fear in Much's voice, and Saffiya laughs at his pained expression. He turns a remarkably familiar expression on her - he's taken offense, a not uncommon state for him - and then chases after Robin and his son as they head back to the main house. "You said you would not tell her!"

Robin twists around, walking backward, and asks her if she is coming with them.

"Oh, so she can watch my wife murder me?" Much interjects, reaching for his son.

She shakes her head, still laughing. Robin, dodging out of the way of Much's hands, holds her eye just long enough to see that she really is alright, and then turns back around and picks up his pace. William gurgles happily in his arms while his father continues his lament.

The sunlight is intoxicating. She roams the meadow with her face tilted toward the clear blue sky, lost in the beauty of the day.

In the first few weeks, she was ambushed by memories. She traced down each lane a recollection of her husband's worried brow and his stern eyes. The birdsong sparked a memory of him smiling down at her as she tried her hand at fletching. The noise of crickets reminded her of nights they spent whispering to one another while the rest of the camp slept. And on and on it went, she roving the land, discovering pieces of their life together tucked away in every glen and stream.

But the pain was brief. The initial sting has faded, and now she sits in the grass thinking, not of Will, but of how happy she is to be back among friends. She spots a row of green vines tangling alongside a creek – honeysuckle, waiting for the full heat of summer before they blossom. She follows the twists and turns of the vine with her eyes, and remembers that Allan had been the one to first show her the sweetness of the nectar. A pang of regret - one that lives beneath her ribs, a permanent though fluctuating fixture - kicks deep within, protesting that two of the men she holds most dear could not be here to see the beauty which has overtaken their friends' lives.

A shadow falls over her. She quits her daydream and looks up to see Gisborne standing close.

"Am I interrupting?"

She smiles. "Not at all."

He sits down beside her and says, "Everyone is wondering where you've gone off to."

"And you came to look for me?"

He cocks an eyebrow in the direction of the main house. "I came to escape the noise. Much is upset about...a rattle, or something." He shakes his head and sighs. "Much is always upset."

She nods in agreement, and they sit in silence for a long stretch of time, watching the cloud shadows roll over the distant hills, listening to the wind blow through the trees. The sun brightens and darkens and brightens again with the passing clouds.

"Peaceful, isn't it," he murmurs.

She pulls her legs to her chest and rests her head on her knees. "Yes. I have missed this place."

"And...you have been well? Being here again...?"

He is always hesitant when he asks questions which might touch on Will. She peers over at him, squinting against the sun, and smiles to assure him that his concern is welcome. "I am happy. I have missed him more, at times...but I am happy."

"You do not regret coming back?"

"No. Do you?"

He shakes his head, his answer coming quickly and decidedly. "No, not in the least."

There is another interlude of sun and sky and quiet. Saffiya gazes at the golden horizon until she feels Gisborne's eyes on her. She looks over at him – he is staring at her in puzzlement. He takes a breath and asks gently, "Why did you not come with me?"

She quirks another smile, this one not nearly so easy. "I was wondering when you were going to ask me that." She bows her head for a moment to try to collect her thoughts. There are many ways to answer his question, but in the end, she settles on the simplest. "I was afraid."

He looks upon her with great patience, giving her time to think and respond as he always does. She tries to elaborate, but words fail her. She adds only, "I was afraid to leave him."

He nods, and she knows he understands her perfectly.

"I am glad you came," he says, casting his gaze at the fields below them, and never letting it wander in her direction. He seems slightly uncomfortable with the admission, and she goes still, put on edge by his change in mood. "Being back home," he says, "has not been as easy as I had hoped. Nottingham holds as many bad memories as does Acre. I've not had any activity to occupy my time or thoughts since returning, and it has resulted in a...a resurrection of feelings and fears I'd hoped were long gone." He gives her one glance, and a glimpse of a crooked smile. "Marian was not the only one I've wronged."

She nods. Carefully, she asks, "Do not the people here know what you've done for them in recent years? Your friendship with Robin...I'm sure they know you better now. I'm sure they know you've changed."

He makes no answer. His sigh is small, and barely heard over the rustling of the tall grass. She touches his shoulder. ..."But you fear they are slow in accepting you."

"Or they might never accept me. It is only right." He finally lifts his eyes to hers. "I am determined to make amends however I can, but the naturalness of their reaction does not take away its sting. I'd much rather face it with you at my side. You give me a bit of courage, you know."

She grins at him. "Oh?"

"Your friendship - your forgiveness..." He pauses, and his eyes tighten, his chin lifts - he seems to breathe in the wind before looking her straight in the eye. "I can't have Marian's, but yours is nearly as precious. So thank you." He takes her hand that was resting on his shoulder and cradles it between his own. "Thank you."

She asks no more questions. His words, and the deeper understanding they caused, linger between them. They sit in companionable silence as the morning gives way to afternoon. She eventually lies back in the grass and stares up at the sky until her lids grow heavy, and the buzz of insects begins to lull her into a light sleep.

An unknown measure of time later, she hears Gisborne say "They will be looking for us," and she cracks open one eye to see that he is squinting up at the sun. "It is time for the noon meal," he explains.

She sits up and stretches her arms, blinking away the last of her languor. Gisborne, standing over her, offers his hand. A surprising flash of heat rises in her blood the moment her hand meets his again, running from fingers to arm to breast, something gentle and heady. His grasp is large and warm. His arm is steady as she pulls on it to come to her feet. She looks up at him, face suddenly hot. All thought evaporates as his presence takes on a charge, changes - she tilts her head back to look up at his face.

He is staring at her with a peculiar look in his eyes. He swallows, and turns away.

They walk slowly back to the manor, side by side.


	20. Chapter 20

__**A/N:  
**Huzzah! A fast update!

The last chapter was edited (thanks, **weaselle**!) so it's even new-and-improved...er. Nothing much, just some changed words here and there.

Thanks again to everyone who has left feedback. It helps me as an author to improve my writing and motivates me to keep going.

* * *

**Bound Home **

**Chapter 20  
**

_North of me, south of me, spring is in flood,  
Day after day I have seen only gulls...  
My path is full of petals - I have swept it for no others.  
My thatch gate has been closed - but opens now for you.  
It's a long way to the market, I can offer you little -  
Yet here in my cottage there is old wine for our cups.  
Shall we summon my elderly neighbour to join us,  
Call him through the fence, and pour the jar dry?_

-Du Fu, A Hearty Welcome to Vice Prefect Cui

* * *

Archer sits down with a gusty sigh, slaps his knees, and says, "Well, then. You've returned."

Guy sets aside the property deed he was looking over, and meets his brother's dark eyes. "Your powers of observation have sharpened since we last saw each other." Archer waves the wry comment away with a smirk. Guy takes stock of his appearance: the boy looks well. A bit underfed, but, unlike previous occasions when he returned to Loxley with bruises and scrapes (and, at one time, a pronounced limp), he looks to be in good health. "And where on earth have _you_ been?" he asks, not quite certain he wants to know the answer.

"Here and there," Archer replies, choosing to look up at the ceiling rather than at Guy. His fingers dance on his knees. His feet tap some rhythm-less beat.

"And I suppose you found some trouble, _here and there_."

A grin pulls at his brother's mouth. "You might say that."

"I might."

"So, how was your journey?"

Guy breathes out a laugh. "Just promise me that none of your trouble will follow you here. Robin would be most displeased."

"Oh, he _lives _for trouble. Now, tell me, brother: are you...finished? With whatever it is you had to do?"

Archer's eyes bore into him, suddenly serious. Guy knows his concern is genuine. "I am," he answers.

"You had me worried, you know."

"Consider it due recompense for all the times you've made _me _worry. I think you've given me a few of these gray hairs..."

"The ladies think the look is quite dashing," Archer says with a wink.

"And how do you know this?"

A shrug. "I've talked to a few of the maidens in Nottingham."

"And talking is all you did, I'm sure."

"I can't help it if a lass or two wants a moment of my time."

"You are far too similar to Robin."

Archer grins again. "I'll take that as a compliment. Speaking of, have you seen him about? I wanted to say hello before I start drinking all his wine."

"He's gone to Bonchurch. Much is having a problem with flooding in the lower fields."

"Is he all business these days, then?"

"How long have you been _gone_? Robin is never all business."

"Well, I'd have been back long before now, but my ship ran aground off the coast of Dublin..."

Guy rubs the bridge of his nose in an attempt to soothe away a sudden headache. "Should I ask why you were in Dublin?"

His brother shakes his head. "Your anchorite heart couldn't take the answer." At Guy's glower, Archer shrugs and adds, "It was...part of my 'here and there'. By the way, there's a beautiful dark woman picking flowers by the lane. Any idea who she is?"

Guy feels a sense of foreboding. "She used to be an Outlaw with Robin," he replies. "You've probably heard talk of her. She's just come back from her home in Palestine."

"Interesting..."

"Not really."

Archer leans forward. "Oh."

They stare each other down for a long moment, Archer's eyes gleaming with curiosity, Guy trying very hard to clamp down on a surprising surge of irritation. "Leave it," he finally says. "She's had...a difficult time."

"I was just wondering."

"I'm sure you were."

The sound of approaching horses interrupts another staring contest. "That'll be Robin," Guy says, and Archer jumps up, starting to look slightly nervous. "You wanted to say hello...?"

Archer seems not to hear him. "I hope he's not mad about the boat," he mutters, and before Guy can ask what 'the boat' has to do with anything, Archer hauls in a deep breath, takes on the appearance of a man about to meet his executioner, and quits the room.

"Well," Guy says into the sudden silence. Nonplussed, he scoops up his belongings and heads out after his brother.

* * *

She is fascinated. Archer is a man all his own, of course, but he is also a remarkable collection of Robin and Guy's features and personalities, and she studies him unabashedly during the evening meal. He mistakes her stare for an interest in _him _rather than just an attempt to understand the oddity he represents, and regales her with stories of his adventures (greatly embellished, Robin is quick to tell her), trying to charm and amuse her and, admittedly, mostly succeeding. In the firelight, his face is thrown into sharp relief, and she can see the line of Guy's jaw; the aristocratic Gisborne nose; and a smile and set of glittering eyes that look nearly identical to Robin's. He is handsome, which does not surprise her considering that both of his brothers are appealing in both face and form.

And at that thought, she catches herself staring at Guy. He meets her eye, and she disconcerts herself by being unable to hold his gaze. She instead busies herself with her wine.

"It is now your turn," Archer says. She turns a questioning look on him. "I've shared all of my interesting tales," he explains, "so now it is time to hear yours." He winks. Little John groans in disbelief. She works her mouth to hold back a smile.

"I'm sure you've already heard them. Robin?"

At the head of the table, Robin takes a sip of wine and nods. "Indeed! I have often regaled my brother with our heroic deeds – not that he believed me."

"But now that I've seen you in person," Archer is quick to say, turning back to Saffiya, "I can more readily have faith in his word."

Someone snorts - she isn't sure who, but Archer holds her eye, face alive with mirth, until she shakes her head and returns his smile. He leans back in his chair, pleased with himself and his charms, cheerfully oblivious to John and Robin's laughter.

She glances at Guy, and sees that he is calmly chewing his bread, ignoring the other men. He looks up, meets her gaze again - there is laughter in his eyes. As the others continue to trade stories (and accusations that said stories must be greatly exaggerated), she leans over to say to him, "You know, it was very difficult to believe you when you first told me about your brother."

He gives a short, soft laugh. "I know the feeling."

"What was it like? Seeing him for the first time?"

She watches him as his gaze turns to Archer, becoming thoughtful, distant. "I felt..." His words trail off. She is suspended with him for some moments, caught by his expression while Robin's laugh and the sound of creaking chairs echoes as though it is coming from another room.

Guy at last looks down at the table, blinking and frowning. "I felt relief." He meets her eyes. "Family is...important to me."

She nods, thinking of her own family that is lost to her forever. Will's absence has always been painful, but there is a particular cruelty in knowing that she has nothing remaining of him, no child to look at and see her husband's eyes or nose or hands. There is nothing of Will that is living on - only a brother, residing somewhere unknown. She wonders if she might be able to see Luke one day. It is at once a comforting and frightening thought.

She reaches out on an impulse and covers Guy's hand with her own. He looks at her in surprise - he was still lost in thought, no doubt remembering the first time he met Archer - but it fades quickly, and he gives her a small smile of thanks. His thumb sweeps back and forth over her skin. At first it is a pleasant sensation, a sign of connection and reassurance. But then she sees it. She sees the moment when his eyes lose the veil of remembering and focus entirely on her, fully in the present.

And his touch begins to burn.


	21. Chapter 21

**A/N: **A-ha! Another (sort of) swift update! Thank you everyone for your kind reviews and your constructive feedback. I hope you all enjoy this chapter.

* * *

**Bound Home**

**Chapter 21  
**

_Mountains cover the white sun,  
And oceans drain the golden river;  
But you widen your view three hundred miles  
By going up one flight of stairs._

-Wang Zhihuan, At Heron Lodge

* * *

The house is quiet with sleep. He is surprised that his brother is still awake, since the boy's journey was long, and he is certain Archer has not slept in a proper bed in months. But awake he is, wandering the grounds long after midnight. Guy watches his shadowy form from the window of the guest room that Robin generously keeps ready for his use, and, curious as to what is keeping his brother from his rest, goes down to meet him.

The crunch of his boots on the dirt is loud in the still air. Archer whips his head around, visibly relaxing when Guy comes forward into the moonlight.

"What are you doing still awake?" he asks quietly.

Guy steps closer. "I came to ask you that same question. Is everything alright?"

Archer's nod is a sliding of shadow upon shadow. "Just thinking."

"About?"

His brother sighs. "Dreary things."

Guy studies him, seeing a pensive expression on Archer's face. "Will you tell me what is on your mind?"

Eventually, after a silence thick with cricket chirps and slow breaths, Archer does. He talks about his shipwreck, and this time all flippancy is gone from his voice. "The water rushed in on us so quickly – there was nothing we could do. I'm not sure how any of us survived, and it – it frightened me. We could have perished that day." He picks up a rock next to his foot and tosses it at the night sky. His arm hangs limp at his side as he watches it sail into the darkness. "I'm getting _old_."

Guy laughs quietly. "So – you have faced your mortality at last."

"I suppose."

"And what will you do now that you have accepted the horrible truth that you are in fact _not _going to live forever?"

Archer purses his lips, scuffs the toe of his boot in the dirt. "Seems like I should do something _responsible_. Not sure what that is, though."

"Get some proper work," Guy advises, and with an unavoidable catch in his voice, he adds, "Get a wife. Make a home for yourself."

"Somehow, the thought of getting married is even more terrifying than the thought of drowning."

"Enough with you, then," Guy laughs, and Archer cracks a smile, but it quickly fades.

"Sorry," he says. "I just don't like to think about it, is all."

"Drowning, or marriage?"

"Oh, now who's joking..." Archer shakes his head with a wry cast to his face, and then heaves a sigh and stares up at the stars.

Guy follows suit. The sky is thick with silver lights.

"Are you happy now?" Archer softly asks without taking his eyes off the stars.

Guy slowly tilts his gaze down, from star to star, from sky to horizon - from horizon to his brother's face. "I am," Guy whispers, as if it is a secret only now being revealed to him.

* * *

Summer brings an outbreak of influenza to Nottingham. Little John tells her it is a milder wave than the one they endured the previous winter, and asks if she would help Matilda prepare some curatives. She readily agrees, and spends two weeks in the villages, studying symptoms and administering remedies. She shows Matilda her father's books, and the woman is astounded at the level of detail found in them.

"He must've loved his work," she says one day, after Saffiya shows her a table of symptoms organized by time of onset and length of duration.

"He did," she says with fondness. "He was an excellent teacher, as well."

"You learned your arts from him?"

"He gave me the foundation. He died when I was quite young."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Matilda murmurs, caressing the worn edges of the linen paper. She flashes Saffiya a smile. "He'd be proud o' you, that's for certain."

Saffiya gives her a smile of her own, throat too tight to let her express her gratitude in words.

Those who fell sick manage to recover quickly, and Saffiya leaves Matilda's home in late June, just as the honeysuckle has reached full bloom. Robin greets her at his threshold with words of congratulations - "You always were a talented physician, Djaq." - and ushers her inside to take refreshment.

In the dining hall, Guy is sat at the table with a map and some papers spread out before him. "We've been shopping," Robin explains cheerily.

Guy glowers. "I am looking at property suitable for building a house," he corrects. "I cannot live under the same roof as Loxley much longer - not without losing my mind," he adds, directing the last comment at his host.

"It's nice to know my hospitality is appreciated," Robin drawls. Saffiya peers over Guy's shoulder and sees that the map is of Nottingham.

"But you do wish to remain close by, it seems," she says to him. He extends his glower to her. She grins. And then their gazes lock and linger. She is hit, suddenly and with great force, by a new understanding of what it means to be _close_ to him (just two breaths away).

His eyes are very, very blue.

She pulls back a step and tries to look away, but she can't help returning her gaze to his. Robin talks on about deeds and properties, but his words are nothing but noise. Guy is still staring at her, with such an expression that makes her think he is deaf to Robin's speech as well.


	22. Chapter 22

__**A/N:  
**Well, dear readers, we are almost finished with this story. I've added to this chapter, trying to create a bit more depth to Guy and Saffiya's growing attachment without overstating things. The ending in the previous version did feel a bit rushed. I hope this version is an improvement, and that the next two chapters provide a satisfying conclusion to this little tale.

I thank everyone once again for your excellent critiques and compliments - they really do keep me going.

* * *

**Bound Home**

**Chapter 22  
**

_"Tell me, where do you live? -  
Near here, by the fishing-pool?  
Let's hold our boats together, let's see  
If we belong in the same town." _

_ -_Cui Hao, A Song of Changgan

* * *

Archer looks out over the field and whistles low in appreciation. "This is a fine sight."

Guy nods, proud and unable to keep himself from showing it. "The land is good, with well-placed waters. The southern fields have produced well in the past. All they need is a bit of tending to."

"And the house?"

"Marked off," Guy says, pointing to a spot in the distance where stakes have already been laid in the ground. "It will certainly not be large, but suitable for a family of perhaps four or five."

"A family, eh."

Guy feels himself gritting his teeth at the sly tone in his brother's voice. "Yes."

"So...you have thought about getting yourself a woman, settling down."

His jaw twitches. "I have," he answers shortly.

"And do you have someone in mind...?"

"I don't know why I brought you here."

"Peace!" Archer laughs. "I will leave it be."

"Perhaps then I will let you into my house once it is completed."

"You are generous beyond words."

Guy drops a slight bow in acceptance of the compliment, and then lets his gaze roam the expanse of his land.

"Autumn is on its way," Archer says. "I think...I will spend some more time here."

"Really?" Guy looks over at his brother. "Is someone else thinking of a family?"

"Robin still has some wine left," is Archer's bland response.

As autumn blows in, his brother is true to his word and stays to help with the construction of Guy's new home, which is situated just within the borders of Robin's recently expanded lands. A surprising number of Loxley's men turn out to lend assistance as well – Guy had not thought his cruelties under the old sheriff's rule would be so quickly forgiven, but, while the men keep mostly to themselves, they do not begrudge him a respectful nod or a word in greeting, and they work with reasonably good cheer. Guy cannot help harboring the suspicion, though, that his roof will cave in on him one day, and the villagers will have had their revenge at last. He says this to Saffiya, who quirks an eyebrow and replies, "I would not blame them if they did."

Sometimes he does not understand her.

She is, in fact, part of the reason he is making haste in getting himself a home of his own. He admits it to no one, but living under the same roof with her for the past few months has become a strange sort of torture_.  
_Her friendship is indescribably precious to him, but at times - and more and more often - he finds his gaze will stray, focusing on the glossy black of her hair or the pronounced curve of her hip, and his mind will be riddled with admiration to the point where he can hardly utter a sensible word. The odd occasion when her hand comes to rest on his shoulder leads to long stretches of imagination, how it would feel to bring her closer, to see how well she would fit within his arms.

The more time he spends with Saffiya, the more he realizes the potential they have to be something powerful together. It moves him, entrances him, frightens him. He watches her now to see if there is any hint that she feels the same, but though she smiles so readily at him and laughs so freely, he cannot shake the feeling that he is deceiving himself.

It is a pitiable business, falling in love.

He has other motives, of course, for wanting to build this house. And whether a family proves to dwell in it with him or not, he is proud to have property of his own. Not something stolen or borrowed – something rightfully his.

Construction slows during the winter, and Saffiya spends some of the season at Bonchurch to be of assistance to Eve, who, as Robin tells it, is having a slightly difficult pregnancy the second time around and who, as Much tells it, might collapse at any given moment. Her absence leaves Guy with conflicting feelings that he tries not to dwell on. He focuses on his property. Eve delivers safely, Saffiya comes back to Loxley, and then Guy finds he cannot focus on anything at all.

* * *

Robin gives her the news that Luke Scarlet has come back to Scarborough, bringing with him a wife and daughter, and then he waits, seeming wary of her reaction.

She feels tears well in her eyes – _Will's_ family, his brother; a sister-in-law and niece he never got to meet – and tells him immediately that she will go to them. "I was hoping I would one day see his brother again. I have something of Will's that I would give him."

"I can go with you..."

She takes his hand and gives it a slight squeeze. "You do not have to. I will be fine."

She stays in Scarborough for two days, and when she rides back to Loxley, dusk is falling, and Guy is waiting.

He says nothing as he meets her on the lane leading to the main house. She dismounts, tired but eager to be on her feet rather than on horseback. He searches her eyes, no doubt looking for the fatigue and grief that he fears she would feel, and she lets him, wanting to reassure her friend that she is in fair spirits. When he is satisfied with his study, he offers her his arm. She takes it, grateful for the support, and allows him to lead her back to the house.

After supper, when she is drowsy from her travels and suffused with the relief of being back in a familiar place, she sits by the fire and spends the better part of an hour stroking a cat – Robin's favorite mouser – and reflecting back on her time in Scarborough.

She is hardly surprised when Guy takes a seat on the rugs near her feet, reaches up a hand to scratch under the cat's chin, and quietly asks about her journey.

"It was difficult," she confesses. "Luke sounds very much like his brother. At times I would hear him calling from outside, and it would sound like Will, as if he was right there again..." A tremulous smile appears and fades. She shakes her head as if to scold her tears away. "But they welcomed me. Their daughter is beautiful. We talked of their time in London, and they asked me about my home and what life was like for us in Acre. I am glad to have gone." She smiles again, but it feels forced, obligatory.

She is tired.

She gently removes the cat from her lap and sets him down on the floor. "I must get some rest now," she tells Guy, who stands with her and murmurs his intention to do the same.

But before she reaches the stairs, he reaches out and lays a hand against her cheek. She stills. He takes a step closer and says, "Saffiya...I _am_ here if ever you need me."

She can feel every curve and callous of his palm. His hand and long, fine-boned fingers span the entire length of her face. She covers that hand with her own. "I know."

The smallest of smiles flits across his mouth. She sinks into his touch, and when he takes another step closer, she lets herself rest fully against him. His arms come around to hold her gently - carefully, she thinks - and there is so much warmth in his embrace that she imagines she could almost fall asleep right then and there.

It's a feeling of security she hasn't experienced in years. The stress of the past two days passes over her like a wave of fire, twisting two small tears from her eyes. She turns her face to the side to let them disappear into the fabric of his shirt. Minutes pass, and she settles - her resurrected grief slowly fades back into the dust, and she feels herself return to the present.

When fatigue makes another strong sweep through her body, she pulls away and looks up to whisper a "Thank you."

His breath ghosts across her mouth. His eyes are hooded and dark. His hands linger against her back for a moment longer, and then he steps away to let her walk past. When she reaches the landing, she pauses to look down. He is still at the foot of the stairs, leaning against the railing and staring at the fire with an unreadable look on his face.


	23. Chapter 23

**A/N: **So, here's a heavily-revised chapter. I wanted to spend just a tad more time exploring our main characters' changing feelings. This section includes a lot more on Djaq's side, and you'll find that the following chapter (the last one!) has also been quite altered to deal more with some of Guy's lingering issues. This means that this story will have one more chapter than the earlier version, which makes me happy because I like even numbers. :p Please let me know what you think of the changes.

Thank you all for your lovely reviews. They mean so much to me.

* * *

**Bound Home**

**Chapter 23  
**

_"Yes, I live here, by the river;_

_I have sailed on it many and many a time.  
_

_Both of us born in Changgan, you and I!  
_

_Why haven't we always known each other?"  
_

- Cui Hao, A Song of Changgan II

* * *

Robin insists on having a celebration to mark the completion of Guy's home. Guy, exhausted by the matter – work on the house was delayed due to a succession of three rainy months, and he spent those months consumed with concern for the half-finished building and its grounds – is not thrilled at the idea.

"I allowed you this land in return for your attendance and accommodation, Sir Guy," Robin tells him with mock gravity. "Your obedience to your lord is part of the agreement."

Guy cannot think of a time when Robin did not get his way, so he throws up his hands and lets him do as he pleases. The celebration ends up lasting three days, thanks to Robin's generous gift of several barrels of wine and to the large number of people involved. Many of the villagers come to pay their respects and discuss the handling of Guy's acreage, giving advice on farming, and requesting consideration for poorer family members who wished to work the land.

"I think I almost cut out the tongue of that miller some years ago," Guy murmurs to Archer on the second day of the festivities. "And he just came to counsel me on the best fields for planting."

"The prospect of good work can do much to repair damaged relations," his brother replies, which turns out to be one of the last coherent sentences he speaks that day, thanks to his appreciation for Robin's wine.

After the villagers, stomachs full with good food and drink and hearts lifted at the prospect of more work, leave to stumble back to their homes, and while Archer is sleeping off his revelry next to the hearth, Guy rides out with Robin to the edges of the property to give it one final survey before the spring sowing.

They crest a hill and look out over the fields. "I cannot thank you enough for this," Guy says. "For all your kindness, Robin – thank you."

Robin accepts the expression of gratitude with a small, warm smile. "We deserve this," he says with quiet certainty, his gaze sweeping over the distant treeline and the sun-washed meadows. "We have fought for it, and now it is ours."

The horses munch on the bright green grass. A cool March wind blows. Guy thinks of his parents, of his sister. Of his father's name, now landed again and enriched, not with money, but with honor. He thinks of the future, and what he wants it to be.

"I plan to court Saffiya," he blurts, the sudden noise startling his horse into a small side-step. Heat rushes to his face. He risks a glance at Robin.

He is frowning, head cocked to one side. "You mean you haven't been?"

Guy sighs away the anxiety he felt at the possibility of meeting with disapproval and scowls at Robin's laughter. "I have _not_," he replies.

"You have done a poor job of hiding your interest," Robin says, still laughing. "I think all of Loxley knows you _plan _to court her."

"And Saffiya?" he asks, horrified, which sends Robin into another round of laughter.

"She is far too perceptive a woman not to have figured out your intentions. You spend much more time with her than any man would who wishes to remain only friends."

"Very well," Guy mutters. He turns his head to hide the flush of embarrassment. When Robin has quieted, he faces him again and says, "She is strong, beautiful. She has such joy... I do not think she will have me, but I must try."

"Do not doubt yourself," Robin says gently. "You are a good man, Guy of Gisborne. She knows this."

Guy bows his head and closes his eyes. _A good man. _Had he ever been called that before? Perhaps once, many years ago, by a woman who believed...

"You never ask me about Acre," he says.

Robin does not answer right away. The air is filled with a breeze and the sound of faraway insects. Their horses flick their ears against the gnats they stir up from the grass. Nearly a minute passes, and still the silence is unbroken. Guy fears he will never get a response, but Robin finally takes a breath and says softly, "I must move on."

Guy lifts his head. Robin meets his eye and says, "You have made peace with her." When Guy considers and finally nods, he adds, "Then so have I."

They linger for a few minutes more, and then guide their horses down the hill. Guy thinks they are ready to return to the house, but Robin stays east, heading to the treeline – to Sherwood forest. Silently, Guy follows.

The air is much cooler under the thick shade and redolent with the scent of earth and wet leaves. They duck their heads to avoid low-hanging branches and keep the reins loose, letting their horses take their time in picking out a path. Eventually, they reach a clearing where an ancient oak stands alone.

Robin stares at the base of the tree. His voice is hushed. "I buried her ring here."

Guy swallows back a stone of old, heavy pain. His chest burns with all the regrets that have been buried in this clearing. "Do you think they've met?"

Slowly, Robin brings his gaze up. "Marian and...Allan. Will Scarlet," Guy clarifies, never taking his eyes off the ground where, somewhere underneath layers of years and dirt and dust, lies Marian's engagement ring. "Do you think they're together? In heaven – or somewhere..."

Robin stares up through the branches and limbs. "Don't know," he answers, voice thin and distant.

Guy follows suit, and looks up to watch the wind dance through the leaves. The sky beyond is clear blue. "Do you believe in heaven?" he asks, so softly he barely hears his own words.

His horse shifts his weight under him, and Guy sways with the movement. He hears Robin sigh, and then give an answer that sounds very much like what an old friend would say, a friend who sits by the sea every afternoon but who never told him why. "I do believe," is Robin's faint reply. "We must."

* * *

She thinks about Kalid as she looks over Matilda's apothecary, wondering how he would react if he knew how greatly admired he was by the English woman. "Don't know why we haven't been usin' this already," Matilda says, sniffing appreciatively at a poultice Saffiya made from one of Kalid's recipes. "That man's a miracle-worker."

Saffiya spends many of her days working with Matilda, exchanging knowledge and helping the sick who come from miles away to be seen by the highly respected healer. She wonders if she will ever see Kalid again to share with him what she has learned from Matilda. She wonders when she will begin to yearn for her home country. That time has not yet arrived, and since she has been in England for nearly two years, she wonders if that time will ever come at all. Little John asked her once if she missed Acre. "Not more than I would miss Nottingham if I were to go back," she said in reply.

And her answer is still holding true. Guy of Gisborne has something to do with that.

He is open now with his affection. He visits her often while she works, occasionally even escorting her when she makes her rounds among the villages. He asks about her patients, and though he readily admits that most of what she says goes far beyond his limited knowledge of medicine, he stays curious and involved. She takes an interest in his lands, and always feels a distinct joy when he gives her a smile and tells her of his success.

They go on comfortably. Robin drops hints about the future, but she doesn't put much stock in his teasing until Guy surprises her one day by stopping her in the middle of the lane and plainly telling her "You have come to be my most beloved friend," and that day she surprises herself, because she touches his face and finds she is nearly able to say that he has come to be much more than that to her.

Her throat closes on the words – her heart shrinks from them – but she knows it won't be long now. He is too good. She is too happy being at his side, though the guilt of finally abandoning her mourning over Will has nearly swept her back to Palestine once or twice. She knows what Guy wants from her, what he wishes them to be. The thought of beginning anew as another man's wife is startling. But if she tries, if she looks back on her life and its beautiful and frightening turns, she can easily trace the path her heart has taken to his.

Her journey from her husband's side started in a sick room halfway across the world. It has taken her through empty days, through nights that stretched out to a terrifying infinity. It has stumbled her and broken her, smashed her into pieces like so much brittle clay. It has twisted her heart into something unknowable. It has changed her soul like the winds change the face of the desert.

Along that journey, she made a friend - one who mended her broken parts. One who saw the depth of her pain and understood it. One who had made that same journey and could feel every bend and break as though it were his own.

Somewhere along the way, she helped him, too.

Her husband was everything to her. But he is gone. The sun still sets and rises. The winds still blow. Things live, die, are born, are growing. Are passing.

She has untwisted herself, escaped from that dark cavern of grief and is living as someone else, for she can never be who she was before Will's death, and she can never know who she would have been had he survived. But she knows who she can be now.

She walks the same lane that she traveled with Guy a few days before, and remembers. His eyes had been as blue as the spring sky above them. His fingers trembled when they closed around her hand. The full morning sun sketched his face in gold. "You are everything to me," he said to her.

In this new life, they are the most beautiful words she's ever heard.


	24. Chapter 24

**A/N: ** Well, here we are, everybody: the last chapter. The first section is entirely new, and quite a bit has been altered/added to the second section. I hope it's an ending that doesn't disappoint.

Thank you all so much for reading and reviewing. I'm quite surprised that the Guy/Djaq pairing managed to find so many interested readers, but I'm glad for it. I really appreciate everyone's feedback and support. Thank you.

* * *

**Bound Home**

**Chapter 24**

_The limpid river, past its bushes  
Running slowly as my chariot,  
Becomes a fellow voyager  
Returning home with the evening birds.  
A ruined city-wall overtop an old ferry,  
Autumn sunset floods the peaks.  
...Far away, beside Mount Song,  
I shall close my door and be at peace. _

-Wang Wei, Bound Home to Mount Song

* * *

He toys with the ring, turning it round and round. The firelight glimmers as it snakes along the curves and pockmarks of the polished metal. It is a very simple ring. He has never known Saffiya to be a woman who enjoys excessive ornamentation, and he thought a plain band would suit her practical nature. He reassures himself that, when he is able and when she is feeling permissive, he will wrap her in silk and velvet, and hang jewels around her neck and wrists until she is dripping in finery, until her decorations start to at last befit a woman of such internal majesty.

As of yet, he is far too frightened to tell her of these desires, or to even express the full breadth of his admiration. He worries about smothering her, because his love is an intense, deep, living and breathing thing – a beautiful creature that burrowed into his heart and grew until it encompassed him entirely. He worries that his emotions will sway him to the type of excess that breeds darker things. He worries that he will make terrible mistakes. There are treacherous paths in his past that he has walked before, and that he fears walking again.

But he has never been so in love, and he cannot stop himself now from surrendering to it. Robin and Archer laugh at him, but they understand. They can see Saffiya's worth. They can understand his devotion.

The sound of heavy footsteps breaks his reverie. Without looking up, he knows it's his brother.

There is silence for a long moment. Guy feels Archer's eyes on him.

"Get on with it, then, will you?" his brother yells, startling Guy nearly out of his chair. "You've had countless opportunities to ask her, so just _do_ it."

He counts to ten before replying, reminding himself that his brother is still young, and has not experienced yet how love can change a man, and not always for the better. "It's not every day you ask a woman to bind her life to yours," he finally says. "It's...an unsettling proposition."

Every time he thinks of approaching Saffiya, he remembers his sorry history with marriage – how bullheaded he had been in insisting that Marian devote herself to him, how relentless and blind.

And he thinks of how she had looked as she told him the truth. Dressed in white - a bride for another man. Mocking him, laughing at him, arms spread wide as though she was finally flying free out of a cage he had never meant to lock her in.

All those months spent haunting her grave, and still he can't let go of that moment. He doubts he ever will.

"Are you listening to me?"

He looks up and finds Archer stood over him, hands on his hips, frowning heavily. Guy manages an apology, sorry that he had, in fact, not heard a word his brother was saying.

Archer sighs. "I _said_, If she wanted out of it, I can assure you she'd have been on a boat back to Acre a long time ago. So stop worrying. Just do it. Just tell her how you feel and get it over with so you'll stop moping."

"I'm not _moping_," Guy grumbles in reply, but he feels the truth of Archer's words, and bows his head to study the ring and avoid his brother's eyes. "I've been very wrong about this sort of thing before," he slowly explains. "Very wrong."

"I know. I suppose you'll just have to trust me on this."

Guy smirks, a flare of humor burning through a bit of his black mood. "You? Trustworthy?"

Archer grins. "I have always been known as an honorable man. I'm quite famous for it, actually."

His reply manages to drag a fuller smile onto Guy's mouth. Archer preens with his success, standing a bit taller, and he laughs softly. "You know," he adds, "You really do deserve her. You're not who you were all those years ago. And she's an admirable woman, Guy, she knows her own mind. If she's ready, then there's no need to worry. I know you'll do everything for her happiness."

"I will," Guy says firmly. "I want to, more than anything."

"Alright, then," his brother replies with a nod, as though the issue has been resolved. Guy wishes he could be as confident, but owns that Archer is right – he really shouldn't be so terrified of repeating his mistakes, because Saffiya is not a woman who would let him. She is far too independent to ever let herself be caged by jealous affection. They are both free people. And in all the ways that matter, he is stronger than he was before.

Archer is studying him, watching the changing expressions on his face. He apparently sees the moment when Guy's thoughts take him to the right conclusion, because he lets out a deep breath and then extends his hand. Guy smiles at the offer, at the encouragement and approval it entails, and, grasping his brother's hand, pulls himself to his feet.

"Let's get you married!" Archer crows, pushing him to the door.

"What –" Guy stumbles and gapes at his brother. " I'm not going to ask her _now._"

"No? Why not?"

"Because..." He struggles for a moment to find the right words, and then blows out a heavy breath. "There is a time and a place for proposing marriage," he explains, reminding himself again to be patient with his brother. "Believe me. I've enough experience with it to know." He turns to leave, but Archer halts him, looping his arm over Guy's shoulders.

"I don't know if you've noticed, but I'm a man who tends to make his _own _times and places."

"Yes, your reckless abandon is infamous." Guy shrugs out from under Archer's arm, shaking his head in amusement, and heads out of the room.

His brother merrily shouts after him. "Reckless abandon is a perfectly satisfactory way of getting things done. I highly recommend it!"

* * *

The pile of documents is large and messy, scattered across Guy's dining table, no order to it whatsoever. She looks at it with narrowed eyes and a sour tilt to her mouth. Her efforts to translate her father's medical texts into English and French – Matilda's idea – is not a monumental task in itself. Her knowledge of English medical vocabulary has been greatly broadened since her time spent working with Matilda.

The difficulty lies in her translating partner.

Guy sits quietly at the table, just a few inches away from her, studying her English texts and working on translating them into French. When she first asked him for his help and he agreed, he told her with a laugh, "First tutoring in Acre, now translating medical books. I've never been so studious in my life." Now, looking back, she almost regrets his scholarly turn, because it means long hours sat at his side, often in the dark of the evening hours, where the only sound is the scratching of their quills and his slow, even breaths. Lately, she's gotten the feeling that he is close to a confession of some kind – that he means to say something important to her, but as yet he has said nothing. Their hours working together seem to be a prime opportunity to take advantage of, but he will sometimes ignore her for an entire hour, absorbed completely in his work while she struggles not to be irritated; and then other times she'll catch him staring at her in a way that makes her skin flush and her heart pound – but nothing ever comes of it.

Very irritating.

They work well together, companionable, comfortable. Most of the time she is able to concentrate on the task at hand. But she is finding that her impatience is growing, and he is becoming more and more of a distraction.

"What happened here?" she asks him, trying to focus on the mess on the table rather than on the long line of Guy's shoulders.

"One of the cats managed to sneak in here and decided to take a nap on our books," he replies. "He pushed them all out of their stacks. It shouldn't be but a few minute's work to organize it all again."

She nods and watches as he begins to sort through the texts and loose sheets of parchment. His hair, a thick, glossy black that has recently been tempting her fingers, falls into his eyes as he leans over the table to grab one book that managed to get pushed to the other side of the table. When he looks back at her – maybe to ask her why she's just standing there – she blurts, "You Englishmen are very slow."

Guy pauses, arm still stretched out to grab the book. "I'm sorry?"

She wants very much to look away, but can't. She holds his gaze and feels her heart start to pound. "With this marrying business," she answers, and an intense feeling of both relief and trepidation burns through her at having it finally said. "My people do not waste so much time."

He is staring in complete stupefaction.

"I'm sorry?" he says again.

Her blood thunders in her ears as she watches him slowly straighten and come to stand at his full height. Doubt and joy run arm-in-arm through every corner of her heart. She clears her throat to banish the tremor that has overtaken her. "I do not want a large celebration – no matter _what _Robin says – and only those closest to us will attend. And I expect a _sadaq_."

Guy's lips move silently, as if he is repeating in his mind everything she has just said. His eyes are unblinking, fastened on hers, mouth still slack. "_Sadaq_?" he echoes dumbly.

"A wedding gift. The groom is required to give one to his bride."

"You..."

She lifts an eyebrow. He turns away for a second, and then turns back again to fully face her, an abrupt, jerky motion – and still he stares, silent.

"Yes?" she prods.

He shakes his head. "Are you...proposing marriage to me?" His disbelief is slowly fading. A smile pulls at one side of his mouth. The transformation is lovely. She feels a smile of her own growing to match his, but she purses her lips to keep her face neutral, happy now to prolong his stupefaction. Teasing him has become one of her fondest pasttimes – she cannot resist this opportunity, not when he falls into it so charmingly.

"Yes, since you will not propose to me. As I said, you Englishmen are very slow about this-"

She is stopped when, in one terribly swift movement, he cups her face in his hands and presses his mouth to hers.

Distantly, she hears herself gasp. Slowly, as his lips trace fire upon her mouth, realization dawns – he will marry her. They will spend the rest of their lives together. It is happening, it is starting right now, while his hands clutch her tightly and her breath runs ragged.

"I love you," he says against her cheek, and then he pulls back and looks into her eyes. His voice is pleading, urgent "Be my wife - stay with me."

"Yes," she replies.

She stares up at him and feels as though a veil has been lifted, that she is seeing him for the first time - a man beautiful and free, a man who is giving himself to her, giving her everything; her breath catches. A smile blooms on her lips and she sees it mirrored on his.

He drops his gaze suddenly, backs away a step and begins to nervously pat his clothes as though looking for something. "I-I actually have a ring-"

The rest of his words are cut off when she throws her arms around his neck, pulls him tightly against her, and kisses him again.

Weeks later, she stands at an altar, surrounded by the people who mean the most to her. Guy surprises her with his calmness. He has confided to her his doubts about his ability to be a good husband and why he hesitated to take this final step, but now he is at ease, quiet in his happiness. She catches his eye – he smiles at her. There is more peace in it than she has ever seen before.

As the ceremony comes to its finish, she takes her new husband's hand, thinks of a brave man who loved her years ago, and tells herself, _He would want this for me._

The days and weeks and months pass. There are changes, adjustments. Beyond a few minor differences in preference and habit, their first few months as husband and wife hold no surprising revelations. She already knows him so well. And he, as is he fond of telling her, has long thought her to be the other half of his soul.

One night, she is stirred from her sleep by a murmur and a shifting on one side of the bed. She rolls over and opens her eyes. Her husband is awake and staring at the ceiling. She brushes away a tendril of hair from his cheek. "Everything alright?"

In the moonlight, she can see him smile. "Yes," he replies. "I was only dreaming."

"About?"

He turns on his side to face her. "Stairs. I was climbing up a long set of stairs."

She pulls a face, vaguely disappointed. "That does not sound like a very interesting dream."

He shakes his head. "It's not about the stairs – it's about what was at the top of them."

"And what was that?"

He runs a finger down the curve of her cheek. "White light. And voices, laughter. Happiness."

"Oh," she sighs, eyes drifting closed while he continues to caress her face. "Then that is a good dream."

She takes a deep breath, and is nearly asleep again when she hears Guy say her name.

"Yes?" she mumbles without opening her eyes.

"I was thinking..."

He pauses. She is pulled a bit from her drowsiness. "About?"

He moves closer. His arm comes to rest in the curve of her waist. "How do you feel about going back to Acre?"

"To _live_?" she blurts in reply as she sits up, now fully awake.

He shakes his head and answers quickly, "No. No, just to visit, if you'd like. I thought you might wish to return someday."

"Oh." She relaxes against him again, thinking. "Perhaps. Yes. But I don't want you to make the journey just for me. It's too long, too expensive."

"It wouldn't just be for you. I have fond memories there now. And...there is a friend I'd like to see again."

She nods, understanding who he means though she cannot remember the man's name. She gives up on thinking about it, eyes once again too heavy to keep open, her body becoming boneless and far away. "Good," she murmurs into Guy's shoulder. "Then we will go."

"Alright," she hears him whisper. Before sleep takes over, she feels his hold tighten around her, and hears the spring wind gust against the walls. She burrows closer to her husband. He smells like the fields that stretch around their house, like the earth and the sun.

His embrace is her home, and within it she sleeps.

* * *

**End**


End file.
